Voice of the Sea
by violingirl05
Summary: Assana is a mermaid princess who longs to learn more about the human world. However, an overbearing father and six older sisters make it difficult for her to do much of anything. But with the help of a magic shell, some human friends, and a sea witch, Assana just might get her wish - and so much more!
1. Chapter 1

Assana was free. Finally, after a torturous morning following every rule ever laid out by her tutors and older sisters, her father and royal advisors, her governess had declared all of Assana's responsibilities completed for the day, and she was free to do as she pleased until supper.

No one had quite figured out just how dangerous it was to say that phrase to Assana yet.

She raced through the palace halls, long auburn hair streaming behind her, completely unable to wipe the huge grin from her face. It had been weeks since she'd been "free to do as she pleased," and consequentially, she'd mentally planned every second of any spare time she could get her hands on. And there was absolutely no time to waste.

Assana left the palace and made her way expertly through the streets of the capital city, keeping her head down and sticking to the shadows to avoid being recognized. Fortunately, she had so many sisters that, as the youngest, Assana was often overlooked, and therefore not as recognizable as her eldest sister, Cordelia.

Once she left the city limits, it didn't take long to reach her destination. She lifted her face to the sun, broke through the surface, and took a deep, full breath of ocean air.

The world above! How she loved it up here. Everything about it was so utterly different from her underwater big, beautiful sun lit up the sky and warmed the air during the day, and at night was replaced by a silver moon. The sun's rays could not penetrate the water enough to warm Assana's home, and its light was weak and unreliable. They never saw the moon. Breathing air instead of water was always so refreshing, as it smelled salty and crisp, and didn't seem to weigh down her insides as water did. The sky and endless horizons made this world seem infinite, full of endless adventures and possibility, whereas every reef below the waves was the same as any other. Assana felt like she lived in a bubble, and every so often, she was granted the opportunity to view life outside of those confines.

With a flick of her mermaid's tail, Assana made her way to a cluster of large rocks all grouped together to form a wall around a pool. This was her secret escape, a place where her nagging sisters couldn't find her, and she was safely hidden from any human ships. She hid from the ships more because she wanted complete privacy than because of the horrid tales merfolk told each other about murderous humans.

Assana swam right over to her favorite rock, pulling her entire torso out of the water. If the tales could be believed, then this was the only parts of their bodies that the traitors had kept back in the days of old when a group of merfolk decided to live on land and eventually become humans. Which, in Assana's mind, meant the humans were half mermaid. Or she was half human.

And the merfolk of old had some serious magic.

Assana didn't put much weight into the old stories, anyway. People liked to think her father had the power to feel any disturbance in all the seven seas as soon as it happened, which she knew to be untrue. All she knew for certain was that the human world was beautiful and fascinating, and she wanted to know as much as possible about it.

Assana reached behind the rock and into a little pocket created by two stones leaning against each other. It was just the right size for her bag of treasures to hide in. The bag itself was a human treasure: a finely netted sack with a string Assana could pull tight and close the opening. She had found it draped over a coral bed a few years ago, and now it was stuffed full of human oddities.

She had several different scraps of something in varying colors and textures: blues and greens, mostly, and dirty whites. They looked as if they had been ripped from larger pieces, and from the fleeting glimpses of humans Assana had caught over the years, she thought the scraps came from garments humans wore. The textures were nothing like the seaweeds Assana wore as clothing, though. She also had several pieces of rope tied in different knots, each bigger and more complicated than the last. She had tried several times to replicate the knots on the sturdy vines the merfolk used as rope, but the knots were either too complicated or her vines too flimsy. Assan also had what was undeniably a book, although again made of different materials and writted with different symbols, or so she thought - a lot of them were washed away by the seawater. The last of her treasures included a very tiny picture of a woman on a chain, some round, shiny pieces of metal, some jewelry, and what looked like a tiny, less elaborate version of her father's ceremonial trident. Who could possibly need a trident this tiny?

Assana began her afternoon by trying for the thousandth time to decipher the symbols in the book, and finding her favorite pictures. Then she repacked her satchel, slung it over her shoulder, and went exploring.

This particular outcropping of rocks was a virtual treasure trove of human trinkets. The water was shallower, so ships tended to slow down as they manuvered their way through, and this was where sailors got the opportunity to toss things overboard.

Unfortunately, it didn't appear as if a ship had sailed by recently; Assana wasn't finding anything to add to her collection. She was just about to give up for the day when something caught her eye.

A beautiful seashell, wedged between two rocks, peeked out at her only because the falling sun caught the surface just right. It was a white shell, with shimmering blues and greens spiraling through it, and small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. As a princess of Allantia, Assana had no shortage of beautiful shells, but this one was unlike any she had ever seen.

She was tracing the spiral with a finger when she heard the voices.

"Be quiet, Kai! You're just jealous!"

"Oh, really? Have you looked in a mirror lately? You're looking a bit green yourself"

Assana leapt about a foot in the air and dove underwater without a second thought. She may not have felt the same way towards humans as her father, but that didn't mean she was ready to be seen up close by them.

"Admit it, Riagen,we both know it's true!"

Assana thought her heart would explode out of her chest. Where were they?

"No, because it's not true! I don't want - did you hear that?"

Assana let out a squeak when she realized the voices were coming from _the shell._

"Hello?" said the first voice. "Is someone there?"

"It's okay," reassured the second. "You can come out, we won't hurt you."

Well, they sounded nice. And normal. Not like bloodthirsty, ruthless savages all the stories made them out to be. The only thing unusual about them were their accents.

Assana should just stay quiet and let the shell sink to the bottom of the ocean.

"Hello?"

She held the shell close to her lips, unsure how far her voice would carry. She wasn't even sure what kind of magic was making this possible.

"No way. It can't be...can you hear me? Are you a talking shell?"

"I can hear you. I'm not a talking shell, I'm a...girl," Assana said, her guard coming up a little too late. She should not be speaking to these boys. But the thrill of speaking to humans was just too much to resist.

"You're talking through a seashell?" the other boy said incredulously. "This is...this is impossible!"

Assana frowned. "No, you're talking through a shell."

A quick back and forth revealed that both parties had found identical seashells on the rocks today. The first boy who had spoken was named Riagen, and the second was called Mahkai.

"So where are you, Assana?" Riagen asked.

"I'm still by the rocks. i just picked up this shell."

"Are you sailing as well?" Mahkai jumped in. Already Assana could tell he was the quieter of the two. "Perhaps we can see you. What's the name of your ship?"

"Oh, I'm not sailing. I..." Assana's brain scrambled to come up with a good lie. "I live on an island nearby."

"Really? I didn't see any land."

"Yes," Assana said firmly, remembering the area. "It's very small, about twenty knots west. I came up to the cove in a small fishing boat."

"I remember," Riagen said, "I hadn't thought anyone lived htere. Oh well, we're too far to turn back now anyway."

"Where are you sailing to?"

"Everywhere," the boys groaned in unison.

"My father's a very important, very busy person," Riagen explained. He said it very matter-of-factly, not in a showing off tone, the way Assana often spoke of her own father. "As is Mahkai's. So they're traveling all over the kingdom to make trade deals and other boring things."

"They thought it would be a good learning experience for us, so we got dragged along - for a whole year!" Mahkai added.

"That's terrible! A whole year?" Assana gasped. "I've never been away from home for more than a few days before. I couldn't imagine a whole year."

"Well, it's really - " Riagen started, but then a muffled noise sounded, and then silence. Assana stared anxiously down at the seashell in her palm, wondering if the magic had finally worn out.

After several agonizing minutes, Riagen was back. "Hey, Assana? We've just come into port, so we have to go. Is it all right...I mean...can we talk more later? Assuming it still works?"

What was a port? "Of course! It should still work. I hope it does. So we'll talk later?"

"Yes! Goodbye, Assana," Mahkai said.

"See you!" Riagen shouted, already sounding far away.

"Bye," Assana said, then waited a few moments to make sure Riagen and Mahkai weren't coming back.

Assana let out a squeal and turned several backflips in a row, clutching the seashell to her chest. Human friends! She had human friends! Well - if she was being honest, these were her only friends, human or mermaid. But what did that matter? She had someone to answer all her questions!


	2. Chapter 2

Mahkai stifled a yawn and fought every urge to glance over at Riagen yet again. He hated sitting at formal dinners with his father and the various businessmen and important people who wanted to make trade agreements, but Mahkai's father insisted. He wanted Mahkai to learn about the business, and for all the business partners and important people to learn Mahkai's face. Mahkai thought it was all a waste of time, since he was only seventeen years old, and didn't plan on taking his father's place for several years yet.

Well at least Riagen was in the same boat as him.

Suddenly, Mahkai felt his pocket begin to grow warm. He shoved a hand in the pocket to find the seashell - the magic one - quite literally burning his fingers. It was taking all his willpower not to start screaming. Mahkai wracked his brain for a suitable excuse for leaving the table before his hand burst into flames.

Riagen's father must have seen something on Mahkai's face, or perhaps caught one of the frantic looks being passed between the boys, because he excused them without asking questions. Immediate relief rushed through Mahkai's body as he was finally able to pull the seashell from his pocket and bundle it into a swiped napkin.

"What's the matter?" Riagen hissed.

Wordlessly, Mahkai handed the shell over. Riagen yipped when he unwrapped it.

The ship was currently docked so their fathers could take care of business matters, and they were staying in an inn for a few days. The boys rushed upstairs to their suite of rooms, where Riagen immediately dropped the shell on a desk.

They peered at it closely, occasionally prodding it with the napkin. In the dimly lit room, they could see it was also faintly glowing.

"Assana?" Riagen called hesitantly.

"Hello?" came an answer, almost immediately. "Am I late?"

They had agreed to a meeting time, which had actually passed half an hour ago.

"No," Mahkai answered. "We are, it seems. Quick question: is your shell really hot to the touch, by chance?"

"No," Assana said, sounding confused. "And I've been rubbing it...why, is yours hot?"

"Very. Although..." Riagen hesitantly touched the smooth surface. "It's actually cooled off now."

"Did you say you were rubbing it?" Mahkai asked.

Twenty minutes and several burned fingers later, the three of them figured out that they could signal each other by stroking the shell from side to side. The only way to stop the signal was to either rub back or speak to the seashell.

The conversation trailed off a bi after that. "So..." Assana said. "How did you fare in the storm yesterday evening?"

"Oh, we only caught the tail end of it," Riagen answered. "And we docked at port fairly soon after it started, so no trouble here. Just a lot of rain."

"Ah. You were lucky."

There was a few moments of silence as each side struggled to come up with something to say. Riagen desperately wanted to know what Assana looked like, because he knew girls enjoyed compliments and such, but he wasn't quite sure how to ask about that. And Mahkai, the man of few words, was no help at all.

Assana was apparently more well-versed in awkward conversations than they were, because she always managed to revive the conversation. She asked about the port they were docked in, their rooms at the inn, even the ship, which both boys were already finding very confining. She was fascinated by the littlest things, and Riagen could hear her holding back some of her questions.

"Assana, why not just ask your question?" he asked after she'd struggled to phrase something a particular way.

"I don't know _how_ to ask it," Assana admitted. "I've never left home, and no one in my town really leaves either. I'm so curious! But I understand if you ahre bored or frustrated with me. You may speak now."

"Don't listen to him," Mahkai said, shooting Riagen a glance. Riagen thought about about trying to explain how he'd just wanted Assana to stop holding back, but decided against it.

"Tell us about your island," he said instead.

Assana swiveled around to face the island, trying to memorize what it looked like. She could name most of the plant life, since it usually ended up in the ocean after violent storms. Other than that...

But she was determined to repay their kindness and patience. "Well, there's only one main street, and all the houses and important buildings are built off it. We have some people who go hunting, and some people who grow things to eat."

Whether or not Riagen and Mahkai would eat the algae and kelp and seaweeds grown was not important.

"We have our single ruler, a king, but he has several advisers to help him make decisions."

Riagen interrupted, "You have a king?"

"Yes," Assana frowned. "He's always very busy."

"What's his - " Mahkai began, but they were interrupted by a knock on the door. He jumped up and opened it.

"Yes, Father?"

Mahkai's father flashed him a wry smile. "Sorry you and Riagen were so bored at dinner. But that's all over now; would you like to go exploring?"

Mahkai's father knew just how sick and tired the boys were getting of the same four walls of the ship. Riagen shifted, ready to go.

Assana had heard the conversation - the room was quite small - so she held her shell close to her lips and whispered, "You should go. We can talk more later."

"Yes, Mahkai, let's go," Riagen said.

Mahkai's father grinned. "Good. See you downstairs in a few minutes."

"Assana? Can we talk more tomorrow?" Mahkai asked, striding back across the room.

"Of course!" she said excitedly. "Although I'm not sure I have anything left to tell you about. I live a very boring life, you know."

Riagen scoffed. "You're boring? We're the ones stuck on a boat!"

They agreed to a time, and said their goodbyes. Riagen offered the shell back to Mahkai. The boys had been taking turns carrying the shell in their pockets.

"Maybe we should leave it here," Mahkai worried aloud. "So we don't lose it."

"Good idea."

They stored the shell between the folds of a clean shirt, and headed downstairs to meet their fathers.

Assana had just reentered the city limits when her fourth eldest sister Marilla grabbed her. "Assana! Where have you been?"

"I -"

"No time for your excuses!" Marilla interrupted. "If we head back now, we'll have just enough time to get you all dressed up and get to the end of the receiving line."

"Receiving line?"

"The state dinner, Assana," Marilla said, exasperated. "How could you have forgotten? This dinner has been planned for weeks!"

Suddenly, Assana remembered. Her father had invited all the chiefs from the major cities across the oceans to dinner, and she had her sisters were strictly required to attend.

With a flex of her tail, Assana caught up to her sister, and the two of them raced back to the palace.


	3. Chapter 3

With the help of several other sisters, Assana managed to dress and make it to the dinner hall in ten minutes flat. She was out of breath and shaking from the adrenaline, but Marilla said the flush in her cheeks made her quite pretty, and a breathless giggle every once in a while never hurt anyone.

And so Assana was waiting dutifully at the end of the line of her sisters, the youngest of seven, at sixteen years old. She knew no one would pay much attention to her, since she wasn't of age yet, but she had no problem sitting in a corner all night, dreaming of the human world above.

"My daughters," Poseidon's voice boomed over the low chatter of dignitaries and court members. He turned to the visiting chiefs. "My pride and joy, my greatest accomplishment, are my daughters, good , allow me to introduce them to you."

Cordelia, the eldest and heir to her father's throne, swam forward and curtsied low. She wore a crown of shells and corals and pearls in her golden hair, in addition to the traditional ropes of the same materials that all the girls wore in their hair. Her tail was as golden as her hair, and she carried herself with perfect poise and grace. She was the picture-perfect princess, something Assana could never be.

And down the line they went: Darya, Kenwei, Marilla, Talise, Nanami, and finally, Assana. All of their tails were in shimmering jewel tones, representing their birthright of the royal lineage, but only Assana was gifted with a head of deep, pure red hair.

Poseidon grinned down at his daughters, and they all smiled back. Assana could feel her sisters' eyes on her back. They all knew how close they had come to that easy smile being tight and forced, barely holding back the anger.

As expected, Assana was mostly ignored throughout the night. Some polite conversation was made in her direction during dinner, a few people danced with her later, but it was only out of respect to her status as a princess. And so Assana sat in a corner and watched Cordelia dutifully shadow their father, saw dozens of potential suitors chase after Darya and Kenwei, and the rest either avoid men or pursue them.

Assana tucked her fin underneath her, and slowly floated down to hover above the floor. She cradled her magic shell in her hand, which she had taken to wearing on a chain around her neck, and tired to picture everything Mahkai and Riagen had told her today. She struggled to picture the horses Riagen said they rode - did he mean seahorses? Was it possible that those famed merfolk managed to make giant seahorses that could breathe air? Assana wouldn't doubt it in the least. And what of the many buildings: pubs and inns and "the shops"?

She was roused from her musings by a hand on her shoulder. Her father hovered above her. "Assana, dear," he said, "why not go out and socialize?"

"Hello, Father," Assana said, glad to see he was still in a good mood. "I'm fine right where I am. I did dance a little earlier."

"But not with me," Poseidon grinned.

"You're right, Father." Assana returned his smile, and let him lead her onto the dance floor.

They danced in silence for a while. "Always so quiet, my little Assana," Poseidon said. "What are you always thinking of?"

 _Leaving here,_ she thought, but knew better. "Oh, all sorts of things, Father. Everything and anything."

"Perhaps I ought to promote you to head thinker of the council," he joked.

"Oh, no, Father, I don't think they'll like my ideas," Assana said quickly. "Besides, I could never speak in front of all those people."

He laughed at her flustered expression. "Don't fret so much, I was only teasing. Being truthful, if any of you girls needs to make an appearance in the council, it's Kenwei. She is most certainly old enough to hold a position, and if not, marry one of the counselors."

Assana immediately felt a wave of pity for her third eldest sister. The council was full of crusty old mermen.

The dance ended, and Poseidon let his youngest daughter swim back to her little corner. Assana was the child most like her mother, both in looks and temperament. It made his heart ache a little every time he saw a flash of auburn hair or the flick of emerald fins around a corner. He wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to speak to Assana and see his daughter and not his wife.

Assana managed to slip away from the party early, relishing in the silence echoing down the palace halls. She locked her bedroom door behind her, pulled out her journal, and did her best to record everything her human friends had told her that day.

The next morning, she woke early, probably just after the last party guest had gone to bed. Knowing no one would be looking for her today, Assana made her way to the surface.

It had been several days since she'd last been able to breathe ocean air, and it felt sharp and crisp in her lungs. There had been a rough storm, and debris floated on the crests of the waves in her little sanctuary.

Eager to find new treasures, Assana tracked down the pieces of wreckage of the ship that had come apart in the rough seas. She felt a little guilty about her excitement, seeing as men could have lost their lives, but the little island in the distance assuaged her conscience. A sailor could have easily swum to its shores.

The only things floating on the surface or trapped in between the rocks were little trinkets Assana already had. The amount of driftwood, though, suggested the hsip had gone down very, very close by.

"I've got the whole day,"Assana said to a nearby seagull. "I'm sure of it. I'm going exploring."

She dove underwater with a huge grin on her face.

Down, down, down she went. The driftwood and other pieces of wreckage became fewer and farther in between, but Assana was not deterred. Her powerful green tail plunged her deeper and faster with every stroke.

After an hour, Assana reached the bottom and her prize. More than half of a gigantic ship rested on its side in the sand, her sails ripped and tattered, and her mast snapped in two. Assana let out a squeal of delight, not caring if anyone could hear her, and shot forward into the main deck of the ship.

The name had been torn from the side, as well as most of the identifying flag, which was unfortunate, as Assana had been looking forward to telling Riagen and Mahkai all about it. But the inside was a virtual treasure trove.

Most of the things Assana couldn't name, but it didn't make them any less fascinating. Assana spent all day wandering the three decks of the ship, completely overwhelmed, but more excited than she'd ever been in her whole life; she was completely unable to wipe the smile from her lips. Her bag was full to bursting, and then she abandoned it, realizing there was no way to simply pick a few things to hide away in the cove.

The shell around her neck heated. Assana snatched it and called, "Riagen! Mahkai! You'll never guess what I found!"

"What?" they asked, almost in perfect unison.

"A shipwreck!"

"A shipwreck?" Riagen repeated. Assana noticed his voice lacked all of the same emotions bubbling in her chest. Her smile slipped for the first time all day. Maybe humans saw shipwrecks as terrible tragedies.

"Yes," she answered, "I - I think she went down in that last storm. I didn't see any bodies, though."

Mahkai heard the shy, despondent tone in Assana's voice. She sounded completely deflated by Riagen's lack of interest. "Please, Riagen. Some people find shipwrecks and sunken treasure fascinating."

"I hate history," Riagen sniffed. "Too many dates and stuffy generals. And if the ship went down this week, how interesting can it be? It probably looks exactly like this stupid ship."

"Please ignore Mr. Grumpy Pants over here," Mahkai said to Assana. "He had a bad day."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"But you can tell me all about the sunken ship. Did you find any pirate treasure?"

Assana's grin was back, and she eagerly described her findings. She discovered the brightly colored sections of the walls were paintings, the large pieces of fabric hanging in something called "closets" were pieces of clothing called shirts, pants, and jackets, and the books she loved so much were meant to be read left to right, not the other way around like the merfolk written system. Based off the remains of the kingdom flag, Mahkai thought the ship must be from a neighboring kingdom, and he promised to contact people to let them know a ship had gone down. Assana privately vowed to look through all the flotsam to find the ship's name.

"Do you have any coordinates?" Riagen asked. "Maybe we can send a crew there to collect anything worth saving, personal belongings, that sort of stuff."

Assana hesitated. She had been very careful not to say that the ship was currently at the bottom of the ocean, where it would be impossible for humans to salvage anything. The boys probably assumed the ship was only half submerged.

"I don't know if they'll be able to get here in time," she said slowly. "There's only half a ship here, and she's going down pretty steadily."

"Oh," Riagen said. "Well, keep an eye on it for us, yes? We'll let you know if we hear anything from a harbormaster or someone equally important."

"All right," Assana said, immediately glad that was taken care of relatively easily. "I'll let you know if I hear of any shipwrecked sailors, too."

They said their goodbyes, and Assana took careful note of her surroundings, so she'd be able to find the shipwreck again. It was getting late, and she knew she'd have to swim fast in order to get home in time for dinner, where she was sure to be missed. Just as she was about to go back to the surface and get her bearings, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye.

Assana went closer, a little cautiously, for a closer look. But soon another huge grin spread across her face. This was just what she needed! All she didn't have was time...

Assana turned her face back to the sky, determined to come back tomorrow. When she got to the surface, she leaped out of the water like an overexcited dolphin, something her father would have a heart attack over if he ever found out. Today was most definitely the best day of her life.


	4. Chapter 4

Riagen climbed steadily up the rigging, fighting the urge to look down. Mahkai was already scrambling into the crow's nest, and Riagen was determined not to be outdone. After weeks of pleading, the captain had finally agreed to let the boys have free reign of the ship – including the sails, mast, and crow's nest. The boys were wasting no time in taking advantage of their new freedom.

Panting, Riagen finally hauled himself into the crow's nest. Mahkai lowered the spyglass at his eye.

"Well it certainly took you long enough," he said.

"It's harder than it looks!" Riagen said defensively. "What can you see?"

Mahkai offered him a hand to pull him to his feet. "Not much. Lots of ocean. Lots of seagulls."

RIagen took the proffered spyglass. "We can see that from the deck."

"Yes, but think of all the ales you can tell the lasses back home, of climbing up to the crow's nest during a storm, to save the ship!"

Riagen considered this. "True."

They watched the ocean for about an hour, not talking often. Mahkai could tell something was seriously bothering his friend, and was patiently waiting for Riagen to talk.

Eventually, Riagen sighed heavily. "Why now? Why are we doing this now?"

Mahkai immediately understood. "I don't know. I feel like we're still children."

"Exactly!" Riagen said, starting to pace in the cramped crow's nest. "We haven't even finished school yet, not really. And our fathers are acting as if we're going to take their places tomorrow."

The thought made butterflies erupt in Mahkai's stomach.

"How can you be so calm?" Riagen asked suddenly, wheeling on his friend with an intensity that made Mahkai jump.

The tension drained from Riagen's shoulders. "Of course. I apologize. You're always calm. Comes with the territory, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Mahkai answered weakly. "But if you feel any better to hear it, I'm terrified too."

Riagen ran a hand through his hair and laughed wryly. "Yeah. You're really the one who ought to be scared, aren't you?"

"Oh, please. We're in the same boat."

The countlessly repeated joke broke the tension, and they spent the rest of the afternoon in a basket in the sky in companionable silence.

It was very late when Assana was finally able to return to the shipwreck. Her tutors were piling on extra work to make up for the lighter workload from the past few weeks, and her father and sisters were surprisingly demanding of her presence, but she couldn't afford to wait any longer. She had to get away.

Assana's childhood had been filled with warning about the creatures that roamed the ocean after dark, and all those horror stories clamored at the back of her mind as she approached the shipwreck. She carried a bowl full of glowing algae that cast long, creepy shadows down the decks.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Assana rushed past the shipwreck to the real source of her excitement: a cave. The entrance was tucked away, almost out of sight, and the only reason Assana had spotted it the other day was because of the changing angle of the weak sunlight. Now, in the dark, she struggled to find it. She slipped between two rocks, and disappeared.

The algae glowed ene brightler in the pitch-black cave. Assana's heart pounded in her chest as she peered into the dark corners, searching for the great white shark rumored to hide in every merchild's closet.

But no creatures jumped out to eat her. Assana shoved her light into every nook and cranny, eagerly analyzing how many human treasures she could store here. It was the perfect place for her to put her expanding secret trove, especially the new ones from the shipwreck. It was far enough away that none of her sisters would accidentally stumble across it, and she no longer had to run the risk of one of her father's men following her to the surface.

Assana had brought her bag of treasures with her, so she spent some time arranging them on the natural rock shelving along the walls. She didn't dare to go aboard the ship in the dark, instead vowing to come back during the day. But before she went home, there was one more thing she wanted to do.

Assana's head slipped slowly through the surface tension of the water, doing her best to go unnoticed. The nighttime air was significantly cooler, and the bright blue sky had darkened to a nearly black color. Assana had never come to the surface at night before, and adrenaline made the tips of her fins tremble. What kind of creatures roamed here after dark?

None, apparently. Not even the annoying white birds always trying to land on her head. But oh! Up above her in the inky black sky were thousands and thousands of bright lights, small and not as bright as the sun, but breathtaking in their sheer numbers. And behind her, she spotted what was undoubtedly the moon, crescent-shaped and pure white. And so…

"Stars," Assana breathed. "They're _stars._ And they're beautiful."

Assana could have stayed above the water all night long, gazing at the sky. But terror of being discovered – by humans or merfolk – eventually sent her back beneath the waves. Assana snuck through the halls of the palace and slid into her soft kelp bed in the early hours of the morning, and fell asleep dreaming of stars dancing across her ceiling.

Weeks passed. Assana's life fell into a structured rhythm, much the way life aboard Riagen and Mahkai's ship was. While Assana spent mornings in lessons with her tutors, Riagen and Mahkai ran around on deck, barefoot, slowly turning themselves into salty sailors. In the afternoons, they put on shoes and suit jackets and went belowdecks to talk numbers and figures and strategies with their fathers, and Assana suffered through lessons (or lectures) from her sisters or awkward, stiff meetings with her own father.

And in the evenings, they managed to sneak away to their secret places – the crow's nest, the surface, or a secret cave – cradled little white shells in their hands, and communicated across an ocean.

Assana loved these moments. Riagen and Mahkai were her only true friends in the world; the other palace merchildren had never been particularly close to her, as they understood all too well the boundary between servant and princess. She found herself telling them all her frustrations and fears.

"It's just…I'm the youngest of seven," she said. Tonight, she had gone up to the surface. According to Mahkai, a season called winter was falling over the land, where it was very cold all day, and the sun set sooner – which meant the stars came out earlier. "I don't know what my role will be. My eldest sister Cordelia will take our father's place, no question, and my other sisters will take roles in the council, or marry very, very well." Assana grinned as she remembered the last ball her father had hosted, and how one lord in particular had made Kenwei blush nearly as red as Assana's hair. "But by the time I am of age, the positions appropriate for a princess will be taken, and no one is interested in a match with the youngest princess."

"No good men, anyway," Riagen muttered.

"Exactly. So I wonder what the use of all my lessons is. When will I ever - " she stopped, realizing that her human friends would not understand her lessons about interspecies politics and the preservation of deep-sea algae.

Riagen laughed. "You're preaching to the choir here, Assana."

"What?"

Mahkai explained, "It's an expression. Basically, we know exactly what you're talking about."

"To a point, anyway," Riagen said. "Mahkai and I will take our father's places, of course, but they make it seem as if this will happen tomorrow. But obviously, that won't happen, and I don't understand why they are so insistent about it."

"While you don't have a role, we are so stuck in our roles that it's the only thing we can do with our lives. I will only ever be a younger version of my father," Mahkai said.

"Here's to teenage hatred of our parents!" Assana said, toasting her shell like one of the elegant glasses of bubbly she was only allowed to drink at fancy parties.

The boys on the other line laughed. "To no more lessons and lectures!" Riagen shouted.

"To choosing our own paths!" Mahkai yelled, sounding far away and feverish in his conviction. Assana started at the tone, and the smile slipped from her face.


	5. Chapter 5

A year had passed since Assana had first picked up this little white shell, and every day that went by made her more and more grateful for it. In her personal life, she had only grown more isolated from her sisters and father, and more attached to her secret cave of wonders.

Assana tucked the shell under the collar of the delicate seaweed wrap draped over her shoulders. Talise, the fifth daughter of Poseidon, pulled her over to a small vanity in the corner of the dressing room. "Your turn, Assana."

Talise was doing everyone's hair tonight. Their father was throwing yet another elaborate party to officially declare all of his daughters eligible for marriage - even Assana, who had turned seventeen during the last moon cycle. Assana only hoped Talise could do something to make her deep red hair less noticeable, if such a thing were even possible.

"I wish I had hair like yours," she moaned, eyeing Talise's thick, inky black hair, sleek and smooth and as dark as the midnight sky.

"And Nanamei wishes she had hair like yours," Talise grinned, referring to the sister just two years older than Assana, who was desperate to make a good match tonight. Nanamei's hair was black, but not nearly as thick as Assana's or Talise's.

"She can have it," Assana muttered.

"Not looking for a handsome husband tonight, Assana?" Marilla asked, adjusting her coral earrings in the mirror over Assana's head.

"No. I'm only seventeen."

"Making sure you're pretty enough for a special someone, Marilla?" Talise teased.

Marilla flushed as red as Assana's hair. All the sisters knew Marilla was sweet on a merman, and had been for a while, but they had yet to discover his name.

"Yes," Kenwei said, sidling up to Marilla. "Perhaps tonight's the night."

Marilla squeaked and buried her face in a nearby pillow while everyone else laughed. Cordelia, decked out in royal finery and a tiara in her golden hair, called them all to order and lead the procession to the ballroom. At the end of the line, Assana couldn't help but notice Marilla hurriedly adjusting her hair and makeup as she passed a mirror.

With every party, the young mermen took more and more notice of Assana, much to her disappointment. She didn't dislike any of them outright, but she hadn't fallen head-over-fins for any, either, like Marilla or Nanamei. But at least the attention meant she didn't have to hover awkwardly in the corner all night. It also meant she could avoid her father's gaze.

For the past several months, Poseidon had been hard-pressed to look his youngest daughter in the eye. Assana knew she looked more and more like her mother all the time, but she couldn't understand why this made her so unbearable to look at. Shouldn't he be happy? Shouldn't he look at her with tenderness and fondness of memories passed? But Poseidon grew colder and more distant with every passing day, and even Cordelia had no answers.

So Assana danced and laughed and even tried her hand at flirting - Darya and Nanamei had coached her the night before - and did her best to act as if she were having the best time of her life. She let her partners bring her glass after glass of bubbly, as Darya had insisted. Assana also imitated Darya's every move as she dumped most of the glasses into the decorative kelp bed.

Poseidon watched his youngest daughter out of the corner of his eye. She had grown into an exact replica of her dead mother, his dead wife. He could hardly look at her long enough to notice how much she was drinking.

Which meant he had no idea when she actually left the party.

Giggling madly and pretending she could hardly swim straight, Assana untangled her fins from the current young merman she was flirting with, whose name she had not bothered to learn. Tapping her fingers against his chest, she said in a vapid, breathy voice, "Would you be a dear and excuse me?" She batted her eyelashes and pouted her lower lip. "I promise I'll be right back."

She swam off and didn't look back, relieved to be gone. As soon as she escaped the city limits, she made her way to the surface.

Now an expert at telling human time with the sun, Assana knew she was a bit early for her meeting with Riagen and Mahkai, but she didn't mind. The stars were just barely visible in spots in the darkening skies. Assana perched on a rock in her cove, trailing the end of her fin in the water. A few days ago, she had put one of her human books in these rocks, and she paged through it as she waited, trying for the umpteenth time to read the words.

A few drops of water pooled on the back of her hand. Figuring her hair was dripping all over the place, Assana brushed it away and tossed her hair over a shoulder. More drops plopped on her arm, colder than the ocean water.

Assana turned her face to the sky, and just like that, the heavens opened up, releasing a torrent of rain into the sea. Asssana slammed her book shut, having found something far more interesting.

Storms never disturbed life in Alantia, and after years of picking up the flotsam and jetsam of storms, Assana was finally witnessing one in person. She swam from rock to rock, doing her best to keep her body in the ocean and out of the surprisingly cold rain. Her hair was yanked back and forth by the rough winds, pulling her necklaces and earrings with it, even her clothes. But she couldn't take her eyes off the sea.

Assana had never imagined waves so tall in all her life. She had nothing to compare them to, except the buildings of Alantia. For the first time since the storm began, Assana felt fear settle in the pit of her stomach. No wonder huge ships were reduced to scraps.

Lightning flashed across the sky, and in the brief brightness, Assana saw a speck on the horizon, in the midst of the rocking waves. Assana waited with bated breath for another bolt of lightning, to illuminate the sky.

There! A ship, being thrown about like a child's toy on the sea. Horror rising in her chest, Assana dove into the water and began swimming towards the ship.

Beneath the surface was immensely calmer, a whole different world. It was quiet and peaceful, as if someone had closed a jar around the storm and contained it somewhere far, far away. Assana's powerful green tail propelled her forward faster than ever before in her life.

She broke through the surface to check the ship's location, and nearly broke her neck as a wave crashed on top of her head. For the first time, Assana struggled to breathe, her body fighting to pull oxygen from the water, air, anywhere she could.

Assana paid better attention to the surface when she swam up a second time, poking her head through the valley between two waves. Her body rocked heavily on the swells, her fins fighting to keep her upright.

The ship was so close, Assana could hear the frantic cries of the sailors on board. This vessel was nearly twice the size of the one rotting on the bottom of the ocean.

"What was I _thinking?"_ Assana shrieked in her frustration and fear, not caring if anyone could hear her. "What can I do?"

A huge wave rocked the ship nearly sideways, showing Assana the whole of the upper deck, and the desperate men clinging to anything and everything to keep themselves on board. They hung suspended for a long, terrible second, before the wave broke and the ship began to right itself. The men began to fly to the opposite side of the deck, and anything not tied down instantly became a weapon. The spray off the top of the wave stung Assana's eyes, and she blinked rapidly against the salt.

She was pulled high up to the top of the swell by the merciless current, and she cleared her vision just in time to see a man go flying over the side of the ship. Her breath caught in her throat as shouts of "Man overboard!" carried over the turbulent seas.

Assana was swimming towards the ship before she even had a chance to think. If it was difficult for her to manage these seas, a human, no matter how powerful a swimmer, wouldn't stand a chance.

She dove beneath the ship, that eerie silence broken only by the dull creaking of the wooden vessel straining to stay together. She stayed low, avoiding the barnacles that could shred her skin right off her bones, and keeping a lookout for the rumored nets and giant hooks humans supposedly used to spear and capture merfolk.

A yelp escaped her lips. She had expected the fallen sailor to be fighting for his life at the surface. Instead, he hung limp, lower in the water than she was. Assana's powerful tail propelled her to his side in a heartbeat.

Assana grabbed him under the arms and pulled. He floated easily in the water, nearly weightless in her arms. His eyes were closed; he must have lost consciousness before he hit the water. His heavy boots bumped her tail as she swam upwards.

The ship was behind them when Assana broke the surface. The man was heavier with his head and shoulders out of the water, and he still didn't open his eyes. Assana turned awkwardly, and saw the ship was sailing away.

"Wait!" she shrieked, no longer caring if anyone saw her. "Wait! You have to help him! Wait!"

Her voice was drowned out by the noise of the storm. Struggling to keep the sailor's head out of the water, Assana dragged him to the biggest, flattest rock in her secret cove. Getting his body on top of the rock was extremely difficult - never before in her life had she wished her tail wans't such a dead weight above water. Finally, enough of his body was on the rock so that he didn't immediately slide off again. Assana rolled him onto his back, thinking it might be a more comfortable position.

For all her yanking and pulling and frustrated screaming, the man still hadn't woken up. Assana crouched beside him as the rain pelted the back of her neck. She scanned the horizon, squinting as she followed the rocking ship. Surely, it would be heading towards land.

It disappeared from sight. Unsure of what to do - where on earth could she bring him? How far could humans swim? - Assana secured the sailor as best she could on the rock.

"I'm sorry, sir," Assana said, not sure if he could hear her. "I'll be right back, I swear!"

She dove beneath the waves again. It was obvious that she could not bring him back to the ship, even if she were able to find it. And so, the man's only hope was for Assana to find land, where other humans could help him.

Assana knew for a fact that the island Mahkai and Riagen believed she lived on was actually uninhabited. She would use it as a last resort if she couldn't find anything else. But for the life of her, Assana could not think of where humans would live, where land existed in the unbroken horizon of the sea.

Assana began to panic, pulling ragged breaths too quickly into her lungs. The sailor could not survive underwater in Alantia, even if her father wouldn't kill him at the first sight of legs. She couldn't be sure he would survive on the island, and he would surely die on a rock in the middle of the ocean. What had Assana done? Had she saved him from one death and simply delivered him to another?

She hadn't realized the powerful flexing of her tail had slowed until she noticed a shoal of fish pass her by overhead. Assana watched them go as she drifted slowly to the bottom of the ocean.

Assana stared after them, remembering that fish, this species in particular, seek shelter in coral reefs during storms. And coral reefs were always close to shore.

She flicked her tail and followed them. They were quick little things, and easily spooked, but Assana persisted. Gradually, the ocean floor rose to meet her. Assana poked her head cautiously out of the water to get her bearings.

It was still raining, but the waves were calmer, and in the distance, Assana spotted a foggy, grey beach.

She got a little closer, unsure if there would be humans out in this weather. Heart pounding, Assana scanned the beach. It extended endlessly to the right and to the left, the largest expanse of land she had ever seen. Far up the beach, Assana saw dim outlines of what she was sure were buildings. They looked like the buildings on the main street of Alantia, anyway.

The poor sailor didn't have many other options. She was sure he would be perfectly fine as long as he found other humans, and this beach was his best chance.

Assana raced back to her cove. The sailor was still unconscious, but he was breathing normally. She pulled him off the rock and draped one arm across her shoulders while she gripped his waist. His head fell on her shoulder, and for a moment, Assana froze.

The sailor had long dark hair that was plastered to his face and neck with water. His cheeks were a bit pale, but his dark suntan was evident even in the misty, fading light. His lips were parted slightly, and she could feel his shallow, steady breaths on her neck.

He was quite possibly the most beautiful person in existence. Assana's stomach flipped and her heart pattered. Carefully, she brushed the wet locks of hair off the sailor's face.

His eyes flickered behind their lids, and Assana remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

She swam as quickly as she could back to the beach. By now the rain had slowed to a light drizzle, hardly noticeable on Assana's soaked skin. Far more annoying were the long, wet tendrils of hair, which were uncomfortably sticking to her arms and shoulders, dragged down by gravity that did not exist underwater.

Assana's tail struck the sandy ocean floor, warning her that she was dangerously close to land. She used the force of the waves crashing on the beach to propel them onto the sand. As she bobbed in the undertow, Assana understood why humans got seasick. It wasn't because Poseidon had enchanted the waves to ward off the evils of humanity, either.

Finally, the water was too shallow to push them along any further. Assana had never been good at tide studies, but she was fairly certain the tide was going out, and so the sailor was in no danger of drowning any time soon.

She laid beside the sailor, arms trembling with exhaustion. She rested her head on his chest, listening to the calming, steady rush of air going in and out of his lungs.

He was breathing. He was alive. She'd done it.

Assana let out a weak laugh, hardly believing it was true. Waves lapped at her tail, wet sand clung to every inch of her, and her hair was sticking to everything, but Assana had never felt more powerful, more alive.

Hundreds of feet below the surface, two guards approached Poseidon as the party was winding down. "We lost track of her, Your Majesty," one said with a salute.

"How is that possible?" Poseidon demanded. "Where did she go?"

"For a while, the open ocean, and then the surface," the other guard delivered the dreaded news. "There is a storm above, and we lost her in the rain and rough seas."

If the stories about Poseidon's ability to control the weather were to be believed, then the guards fully expected the storm to rage for several more hours.

"Post a guard outside her room," he growled. "I want someone following Assana at all times. It's about time I found out where she's always sneaking off to."

 **A/N: [Mushu voice] I LIVEEEEEE! Hello all! Apologies for leaving this story for months and months. I had a list of reasons why that I was going to share with you, but then I realized, those are just excuses, and no one wants to hear excuses. The important thing is that I have rededicated myself to writing, and you are going to get your (mostly) weekly updates from now on! Please feel free to harass my inbox as well, especially if it seems like I've been slacking off for no apparent reason again. Thanks to everyone for sticking with me!**


	6. Chapter 6

Assana didn't know how long she had been lying in the sand beside the sailor. All she knew was that she had never wanted to take a nap more than she wanted to right then. She was absolutely exhausted after fighting the storm and pulling the unconscious man up the beach.

Fortunately, the storm was passing, so the only thing Assana had to worry about was sneaking back into her room tonight and coming up with excuses for her family and disappointed dance partners.

The sailor beside her stirred, but did not wake. Assana knew she couldn't stay much longer, but she was incredibly reluctant to leave. She ran her fingers through his wet, salt-stiff hair, absently humming an old merfolk lullaby to fill the silence. It was one Cordelia said their mother had sung to each of them every night, and the one Cordelia herself had sung to a toddler who didn't understand that her mother wasn't coming back.

Assana missed those times, when she felt so close to her sisters, when they had made time for her and listened to what she had to say. She remembered when they used to sneak out of their bedrooms and meet in their sitting room to talk and giggle the night away. Now her sisters preferred to go to parties until dawn and sleep the day away. Even though she was now old enough to go to those parties, Assana would still rather turn their sitting room into an underwater volcano or a shark's lair like they used to long ago.

The sailor shifted again. His hair now presentable, Assana's hand moved of its own accord to stroke his tanned cheek. Her humming had long since turned to soft words, and unbeknownst to Assana, her sweet, clear voice was carried over the water and drifted inland to the cottages just over the rise.

It was a calm, peaceful, nearly blissful scene. And so imagine Assana's surprise when the sailor opened his eyes.

The next words died in her throat, bringing the melody to a screeching halt. Her hand was clutched to her chest before she realized she had pulled it away from his face, and her other arm, braced in the sand, wobbled in surprise. The man blinked once, twice, and focused on her.

He took a breath, and Assana bolted.

The tide had indeed moved out in the time Assana had spent on the beach, which meant she had to drag her heavy, useless tail that much farther. She thought she heard the man say something to her, but she didn't stop. Assana hid beneath the water between waves, and as soon as the water was even remotely deep enough, she flicked her tail and took off, her front scraping the bottom.

Assana hadn't meant to stay quite so long. But then again, she hadn't even considered the fact that the man was going to wake up at some point, as if humans weren't a walking, talking, conscious race. And while it was one thing to talk to human boys using a mysterious magic shell, it was a very, very different matter to encounter one face-to-face.

Assana practically flew back to Alantia. She was shaking from head to tail with fear and adrenaline, and her heart was beating about three times faster than usual. She was so shaken she nearly missed noticing the extra guards in the halls.

An expert at moving through the palace unseen, Assana knew exactly how many guards should be at each posting, and all their patrol routes and times down to the second. Tonight, there were six extra guards stationed in the bedroom wing alone. For once, Assana's escape from the ballroom had not gone unnoticed.

Swimming slowly so as not to create a noticeable current, Assana crept around the outside of the palace and entered her bedroom from the window. She took one look at her soft sea-sponge bed, and an ache settled into her bones. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

* * *

The fishing village nestled beneath the ridge on the beach was full of early risers, and so most had heard the lilting female voice rising over the crash of the ocean waves. A few more curious fishermen decided to delay their morning work to go and inspect the beach.

When they saw that there was indeed a shipwrecked soul on the shore, they shouted back to their wives for blankets and a serving of last night's hearty stew, before rushing forward. "Sir! My God, are you all right?"

The fishermen got a bit closer and saw he was closer to a lad than sir. He was sitting in the surf, staring out to sea. He only seemed to notice them when tapped on the shoulder.

"Lad! Are you hurt?" one fisherman asked. Another began to wander down the shoreline, looking for others.

The young sailor rubbed at the back of his head, where a sizable goose egg had formed, then winced. He drew back his hand and saw the huge, red welts left by the ropes on deck. "I think I'm all right," he said around chapped lips.

"You're a lucky fellow," another fisherman commented as the sailor was hauled to his feet. " 'Twas a terrible storm last night, the worst of the year. Thank the lucky stars you're alive, boy."

A shout from down the shoreline, "Was there a lass with you?"

"Yes," he answered absently. His gaze returned to the sea. "There was, wasn't there? And she was singing. Her voice..."

The fishermen looked at each other. There was no sign of any other survivors, and they, too, were men of the sea. They knew the work of sirens when they saw it. Never mind the fact that half the village had heard a woman singing, too.

"Come along, lad. Let's get you fixed up."

* * *

Assana slept nearly as long as her sisters, waking up around midday. Fortunately, she'd had just enough time to get ready and grab some of her lessons to work on before Nanamei wandered into the sitting room, still in her nightdress.

"Already working on lessons?" she yawned. "You must have been up for hours."

Assana gave a shrug in response, then discreetly turned her book right side up.

She was several days behind in her work, so Assana forced herself to do some of the work before rushing off to her cave. She couldn't wait to tell Riagen and Mahkai -

The shell.

It wasn't around her neck. Assana never, ever took it off. Where was it?

Assana tore through her bedroom, rifling through her party clothes, all her jewelry, her drawers and pillows and blankets. No shell in sight. She spun in aimless circles in the middle of the room, hands pulling at her hair as clothes and earrings floated down to the floor. She dashed back to the sitting room with no luck. There was no sign of it in the kitchen where she'd scarfed down a quick breakfast, nor anywhere along the path she'd taken down there. The little white shell was nowhere to be found.

"The storm," Assana whispered to herself, a lump forming in her throat. If she'd lost it at some point during the storm last night, there was no telling where it might be. Her one connection to her friends was gone. Assana felt like her heart was breaking.

Assana barely managed to hold back her tears until she left the city limits. As soon as one fell, though, there was no stopping them, and before long, she was crying so hard she couldn't see. She somehow made it to her cave, where she collapsed to the ground and only cried harder.

She would never talk to Mahkai and Riagen again. She was trapped beneath the waves, now, with a father who wouldn't look at her and sisters who seemed indifferent and hardly noticed her existence. There would be no more long talks under a starlit sky or during a beautiful sunrise. There would be no one to listen to her vent her frustrations or answer her questions. She wouldn't ever again listen to Riagen and Mahkai bicker and argue with each other in a way she had never heard before, one where they were mostly only joking and was a part of their friendship, rather than the end of it. After a year, Assana didn't know how she could bear to go back to her life without them in it.

When her tears finally dried up, Assana rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, pretending she was floating on the surface, with the sun - the beautiful, wonderful sun - warming her skin, her scales glittering in the light that hardly ever reached Alantia. One hand trailed lazily in a basket of cloth scraps and handkerchiefs, feeling the different textures and stitching. Silk, cotton, linen, wool; words and concepts completely unknown to her only a year ago, and now made almost commonplace to her because of Riagen and Mahkai's patient teaching.

"Assana."

Assana was so terrified she actually screamed, shooting straight up and getting ready to swim out the small opening in the top of the cave. But the sight of Poseidon, carrying his trident, and staring down at her with such fury made her tail lock up in fear.

"Father," she breathed, "I can -"

"I don't want to hear it," he growled in a voice that rumbled like the earth-shaking thunder from last night. "Nothing you can say will change what you've done."

One flex of his ice-blue tail brought him right in front of his youngest daughter. For once, Assana wished he would look at anything but her, but she was pinned in his angry stare. She hardly dared to breathe.

"What you have done is unthinkably dangerous and selfish. You have jeopardized the safety of our entire species, and for what? To satisfy your unnatural curiosity." Poseidon waved his free hand, gesturing to all her human trinkets. "Do you even understand that?"

The thought had crossed Assana's mind every time she had swum to the surface. But it had always been drowned out by the thought of the warm sun on her skin, the sound of gentle waves lapping at her fins, the brilliance of a starlit sky.

Assana nodded quickly anyway. "Yes, Father, I do."

"No, I don't think you do," Poseidon said, his voice rising to a terrible shout. "If you truly understood the danger, you wouldn't have dreamed of leaving Alantia, just like every other merfolk for centuries."

His furious gaze scanned the walls packed with human trinkets and pictures, snippets of the world above collected over the past few years. "This behavior will not be tolerated any longer."

Poseidon's powerful trident began to glow, and realization of what was coming made desperate panic rise in Assana's throat. "Father, no, please - !"

A blast of energy smashed into the rock behind her, turning the books and a portrait of a young woman to rubble. The sound made Assana's ears ring, but she kept screaming, "Father, stop, please, I'll do anything you say, just please, don't do this!"

It was as useless as yelling at stone. Assana swam forward and pulled at the arm wielding the trident, but Poseidon shook her off. Three more blasts, and Assana's refuge was completely destroyed.

Assana bit her lip, determined not to cry in front of him, as bits of fabric and paper and rock drifted in the water around them. She refused to look at her father.

"Now," Poseidon said, his voice wavering, "you will return to the palace, and remain in your room until further notice. You are to complete your lessons, and do whatever is asked of you without question. You are to become the model princess. Is that understood, Assana?"

When it became clear he would get no response, Poseidon wheeled and swam away. Assana's demeanor cracked for only a second, one precious second of solitude, before it was broken by the arrival of a pair of palace guards. A dark cloud shrouded her; there would be no escape from this punishment.

The guards escorted her all the way to the door of her bedroom, and Assana wouldn't have been surprised if they had stayed there, making sure she didn't sneak out. But she didn't care anymore. She couldn't talk to her friends. She couldn't collect and admire and wonder over human trinkets. Assana was trapped, a prisoner in her own home, a prisoner of the ocean. She would never see the beautiful sun again.

Assana threw herself on her bed and wept.


	7. Chapter 7

Assana quite literally became a prisoner in her own home. She wasn't allowed one fin outside her bedroom without a two-guard escort, and when she was in her bedroom, the guards stood outside. Her imprisonment might have been bearable if she'd been able to talk to Riagen and Mahkai, but her shell was long gone. It also would have been better if her sisters would speak to her.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Every morning, Cordelia brought a breakfast tray and stayed while Assana picked at her food. She was more than willing to talk about anything except their family.

"I've never seen Father so angry," Cordelia said honestly. "But the others ... I don't know why they won't speak to you. Perhaps they simply don't know what to say."

Assana knew there was something her eldest sister wasn't saying, but she didn't push. As heir, Cordelia was incredibly busy; in fact, it was a surprise she was even visiting at all, let alone for an hour each morning. Her sisters must be just as angry as their father.

And so Assana's days were spent in painful solitude, as she waited for her freedom to be returned or her red hair to turn grey. Mostly, she worked on her lessons and stared out the window, watching the citizens of Alantia go about their lives.

Had she really put all of them in that much danger? Even if she had been spotted by humans, even if the sailor remembered her and her tail (thank the stars Poseidon didn't know about that!), what would have come of it? As far as Assana knew, no human could swim to Alantia. For one thing, Riagen could barely hold his breath for three seconds without thinking of something he needed to say. And she didn't think humans had retained the ability to survive under the immense pressure of all that water on top of them.

Assana felt anger writhing in the pit of her stomach. She pushed herself off the window ledge and began swimming in a frustrated circuit around her room. If she had been seen by humans, or even, in a worst-case scenario, _captured_ by them, things really wouldn't be very different, would they? All it would do was confirm the dozens of stories about murderous sirens Riagen and Mahkai had told her. Perhaps they would kill her in retaliation, or parade her around as proof. But humans could never come to Alantia and destroy all merfolk as Poseidon claimed. So the only danger of Assana going to the surface was a danger to her own self, and if she was old enough to be married off, didn't that make her old enough to decide on the risks for herself?

Assana buried her face in a pillow and let out a frustrated shriek. It didn't matter if her reasoning was perfectly logical or selfish and childish. Poseidon would never listen to her, never allow her to even consider making such a decision for herself. Her father craved control, and he now had complete control over his most wayward daughter.

Assana floated back down to the window seat, still clutching the pillow. Today marked two weeks since she'd been locked in her bedroom. Two weeks since she had felt the sun, seen the stars, or spoken to her best friends. Two weeks, and it felt like an eternity.

She had one small pleasure, though, that no punishment could take from her. Whenever Assana closed her eyes, she could see the peaceful, beautiful face of the sailor. She could recall every curl of his dark hair, every line and angle of his face, every strong muscle that had pressed against her body. Assana might have to take the story of how she rescued a human with her to the grave, but it was something she was glad to keep close to her heart.

A flurry of activity out the window caught her eye. Below her in the city, merchildren had been released from school, and the citizens were hurrying to and fro, collecting children, doing the day's shopping at market, and whatever else they needed to get done before retiring to their homes for the day. Assana had often wondered what life in the city proper was like; to go to school with other children her age, to gossip with neighbors at market, to even have a neighbor. They were so isolated up here in the palace.

The tides were changing as well, prompting shoals of fish to migrate to deeper waters. Assana watched them go, moving in frantic, nervous groups. All except for two massive yellow jellyfish, who stayed close in a pair, but all the other fish around them gave them a wide berth. They were a bit odd and out of place, not only because jellyfish lived in huge groups, but because Assana had seen them before. In fact, she had seen them every day she had been locked in her room, when all the other shoals moved on after a day or two, chasing their food.

Her interest was piqued, but there was nothing Assana could do. Her window was big enough to swim out of, but the guards patrolling the grounds below were on high alert, watching for any wandering mermaids.

Assana tossed her pillow away with yet another frustrated sigh. She was so bored. She had never been the kind to sit around and do nothing for more than an hour, let alone two weeks.

With nothing better to do Assana directed her gaze back out the window. With a jolt, she saw that the jellyfish had come significantly closer. They were now on palace grounds, high over the guards' heads, and ... they were swimming directly towards her.

Eyes wide, Assana could only stare, mesmerized by the contracting and expanding motions of the jellyfishes' big, bulbous bodies, and the delicate, almost lazy way their long tentacles trailed behind. There was no denying it: they were coming right up to her window.

Assana's heart pounded in her ears. She drew her tail up, ready to flick it out and propel herself to the other side of the room at the slightest provocation. In fact, all her instincts were telling her to stop waiting and go now. But part of her, the same part that always spoke up in times like now, convinced her to wait and see what the jellyfish wanted. Assana frowned. This little voice always got her to lower her guard on the surface, and that had gotten her imprisoned in her bedroom.

Her indecision gave the jellyfish enough time to reach her window. Assana clutched the windowsill hard, eyeing them warily.

The jellyfish bobbed in front of her. "Hello, princess," one of them said.

Assana jumped. She hadn't known jellyfish could speak. They had no faces, and, not knowing which one of them had spoken, she was trapped glancing from one to the other.

"No need to be afraid," it continued. Its voice was light and airy, much like its body. It was hard to tell if the voice was male or female. "We are here to help you."

Assana swallowed hard. "Help me?" she squeaked.

"Yes," the other jellyfish said. Its voice was slightly different from the first, the only indication that it wasn't the same one that had spoken before. They were still bobbing in her window, their faces eerily blank and motionless.

"Wouldn't you like to get away?" the jellyfish continued. "And not just out of this room, either."

"No," the first said. "You'd like to have a nice vacation basking in the sun on the beach."

Assana spluttered, fumbling for words. How could they know? Poseidon had been so insistent that no one know what Assana had been up to, to prevent a panic, Cordelia claimed. Assana rather believed it was because he was ashamed of her.

"Never fear. Your secret is safe with us, princess."

Assana finally found her voice. "You want to help me escape?"

One of the jellyfish came closer, a few of its longer tentacles drifting into her room. Assana shied away, not knowing if they were safe or the electrical ones. "We can help you escape this palace. And then someone else can help you escape to the surface."

"Permanently," the other added.

The word hung in the water between them, tantalizing and intriguing. Escape to the surface permanently? How could that happen? Did she want to leave the ocean?

Assana glanced around her room, thinking. "Not much time, princess," the jellyfish prodded. "And we can't come back tomorrow."

Assana drew herself up, and looked square at these electrical, ethereal creatures. "Let's go."

Immediately, one of the jellyfish moved soundlessly through the water, its bulbous head contracting and expanding with mesmerizing speed. It extended one of its lighter arms and brushed the neck of the guard in the courtyard. The merman went rigid as the electricity pulsed through his body, and then he slumped to the ground. It was quick and silent; so fast, that by the time Assana looked up from the first guard, the jellyfish had taken care of all the other guards on this side of the grounds.

"Here we go." Assana jumped, having forgotten that the other jellyfish was still next to her. It swam off to join its companion way up, nearly on the roof of the palace. Without a second glance backwards, Assana followed.

The jellyfish led her away from the city, and also away from all the other areas she had explored, like her cave and the beach where she'd brought the sailor. It made her wonder how in all the seven seas they knew so much about her, if they lived in the opposite direction. Assana squashed the tingle of fear in the pit of her stomach; there was no turning back now.

After half an hour of swimming through empty ocean, Assana dared to ask, "Where are we going?"

"Getting tired, princess?" one of the jellyfish mocked. "Never fear, we're almost there."

Fifteen minutes later, and they had yet to pass another soul. There was no sign of any other fish or merfolk in this area, and the vast, empty space was starting to unnerve her. Even when heading towards her cave, Assan had passed shoals of fish hurrying to and fro.

Her jellyfish escorts disappeared around the side of a massive outcropping of rock. Assana paused and craned her neck, trying to see if it breached the surface; it it did, they would be at the base of an island. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the mountain was more short and squat, and therefore did not breach the waves above.

"This way!" the jellyfish called, and Assana hurried after them.

They swam into a tunnel, which turned out to be long, dark, and cold. Assana felt a glimmer of regret at her impulsive decision to follow these strange fish to an area she didn't know. But then she remembered the alternative - sulking in her bedroom - and the glorious prize she had been promised, and swam on.

The jellyfish stopped at the entrance to a large cave. "Here we are," they announced, parting so Assana could enter first. She swam forward cautiously, floating in the entrance.

The cave was as large or bigger than the grand ballroom at the palace, completely with soaring ceilings and lavish furnishings. Assana recognized most of the furniture as scavenged from the staterooms of shipwrecks: frayed upholstered chairs, broken armoires, and ripped tapestries were scattered around the room. The high ceiling was pockmarked with natural holes, and this must have been the top of the mountain, because weak rays of sunlight trickled in. The rest of the room was lit the way all of Alantia lit their homes: bubbles of glowing algae hung on the walls.

Movement in the corner of her eye made Assana jump and gasp.

"Ah," a croaking old voice said. "My friends, have you brought me a gift?"

Assana moved further backwards as the old mermaid came closer, faster and faster until she felt a delicate, lazy jellyfish tentacle brush her shoulder. Assana froze, heart pounding in her ears.

The old mermaid finally swam into the light of the nearest bubble of algae. She had long, wispy white hair and sharp, jagged fingernails. Her tail was made of dull, cracked black scales, and her fins were ripped and scarred. Her eyes were also jet-black, with hardly any whites visible.

"The sea witch," Assana breathed, hardly believing her eyes. Every merchild was raised on horror stories of the sea witch and all the terrible things she could do, especially to bad children. She could turn their tails into eight octopus tentacles. She could turn their arms into shark fins. SHe could do any number of terrible things simply because she wanted to. Assana had long since written her off as a myth used by parents to make their children behave. Now, she was second-guessing everything she'd heard about the witch.

"Dear, dear," the sea witch tsked. "What terrible manners you have! But, I suppose we've never been properly introduced. I," she swept an elegant bow, "am Estavilda."

Assana swallowed three times before she could speak. "I - I'm Assana, and I'm very sorry to be disturbing you. I didn't mean to, I swear I'll never come back, and I won't tell -"

Estavilda cackled, swimming closer and wrapping an arm around Assana's shoulders. "My dear, sweet child, there is no need to be so scared! You are not disturbing me at all. These jellyfish are my good friends, and they must have known that I could be of some assistance to you. And helping poor, unfortunate souls like yourself is what I live for."

The witch swam forward, pulling Assana along with her. She stopped beside a huge, hollowed out sea turtle shell, and turned to face Assana.

"Now, tell me. What is your heart's desire?"

Assana's heart skipped a beat, but not in fear. Her heart's desire? She had many desires, many things that she wanted. She wanted her father back. She wanted her sisters back. She wanted Riagen and Mahkai back as well. How could she limit it to just one thing? How could she choose?

Actually, there wasn't much of a choice. The jellyfish had been right all along. Assana drew herself up and looked the sea witch square in the eye.

"I want to live on the surface."

Estavilda clasped her hands together. "Ah! A powerful wish indeed! And you're very sure of this decision, aren't you? Very well, then."

She darted to one of the old wardrobes and threw its doors open. Inside were rows and rows of bottles and vials of all shapes and sizes. The witch grabbed an armful and brought them all back to the turtle shell. She then began combining them in a complicated order, muttering under her breath. Brightly colored liquids dripped from the bottles, sinking slowly through the seawater before landing in the shell.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light and a near-deafening explosion. Assana shrieked as steam filled the cave. Estavilda reached through the chaos and grabbed Assana's arm tightly, her long ragged nails digging into her skin.

"Now," Estavilda said, "magic is a greedy thing. It always wants something in return. For a spell this powerful, it wants something powerful in return."

"What does it want?" Assana whispered.

"Your voice."

Her voice? Without her voice, how would she be able to do anything? How would she be able to ask questions, to communicate? Well, she didn't expect there to be anyone around to talk to, anyway. She had lost her magic shell, and she was leaving her family behind. What kind of spell was this witch concocting, anyway?

"All right," Assana managed to squeak out.

Estavilda nodded, and finally released Assana's arm. She disappeared behind the smoke, and then returned with a large conch shell. She handed the shell to Assana.

"Now sing for me."

Assana balked. She never sang in front of anyone.

Estavilda laughed. "I'm not looking for an opera, dearie. Just sing a little song for a minute or so."

Shaking from head to tail, Assana began to sing the old lullaby in a barely audible voice. It was apparently enough, though, because the steam began to swarm around her, and the conch shell in her hands grew warm. It began to glow, brighter and brighter until Assana had to squeeze her eyes shut.

There was a tug in her throat, and Assana's breath hiccuped in her chest. She took another breath, prepared to keep singing, when here eyes snapped open. She was not singing, but her voice was echoing off the walls of the cave. Assana's skin began to crawl as she watched a tiny ball of light float out of her mouth. It was carried by the steam still surrounding her and disappeared into the shell in her hands. The singing stopped, but the shell kept glowing.

Assana turned to the witch and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her voice was gone.

"Very well done," Estavilda said, taking the shell back. "Now we can complete the spell."

The steam began to swirl around her, faster and faster. Estavilda continued chanting, speaking a strange language Assana had never heard before. There was a sharp, stabbing pain in her middle, and Assana bent double, clutching her stomach. The pain began to spread like wildfire down her tail and up into her chest.

Estavilda looked over at her, far too calm in Assana's opinion. "I'd start swimming if I were you."

Practically unconscious from the pain, Assana could do nothing but scream silently. Tears stung her eyes and her ears began to throb. Estavilda pointed up, towards one of the holes in the ceiling, and said again, "Start swimming, dearie."

Assana did as she was told.

* * *

In the fishing village, the shipwrecked sailor had been taken in by one of the village elders and his wife, who fed him enough for three people, since "The ocean seems to have washed all the meat off your bones!" The day he'd washed up on shore, they had sent a messenger into the nearest town with a letter asking for news about his ship, but, this being a fishing village, the fastest animal available was a donkey, and the best rider was a twelve-year-old boy with worldly ambitions to leave the generations-old fisherman's life behind him. The sailor was not expecting an answer any time soon to say the least. So, he did what he could to make himself useful, be it cleaning house, gutting fish, washing laundry, or helping the old woman weed her little garden.

To his utter surprise, less than a week later, the twelve-year-old arrived, eyes wide with astonishment, his back ramrod straight astride his little donkey. Behind him came a half dozen royal guardsmen on some of the finest horses in the kingdom, along with the sailor's father and the king himself. Someone in the back of the group leapt from his horse's back and ran full tilt at the now-grinning sailor, ignoring all the astonished villagers.

"Mahkai!" Riagen screamed, throwing his arms around his friend. "Thank God you're all right!"


	8. Chapter 8

Riagen ran into Mahkai so hard that they both went tumbling to the ground. Villagers came creeping out of their little houses, watching in dumbstruck amazement as their crown prince rolled on the rocky ground of their very hometown.

Eventually, Riagen sat up and gripped Mahkai's shoulders. Mahkai laughed when he saw the tears streaming down Riagen's face, even though he felt tears stinging his own eyes. He had spent the last few days telling himself that Riagen and everyone else had a much better chance of surviving the storm on the ship, but that hadn't stopped him worrying or the rush of relief now flooding his system.

"Mahkai," Riagen said, shaking his friend's shoulders to punctuate each word, "when someone tells you to strap down on a ship, you _strap down_."

"I did," Mahkai insisted, "The rope snapped. Now, remind me, who was it who handed me that rope?"

A flicker of guilt flashed through Riagen's eyes, and Mahkai saw how much his friend had been torturing himself over that moment. Mahkai saw his father running towards them over Riagen's shoulder. "The rope really did snap," he whispered.

Mahkai's father fell to his knees and pulled his son into a death grip. Ear pressed to his father's broad chest, Mahkai could hear the ragged, uneven breaths, but he knew his father would not cry as openly as Riagen.

Mahkai was pulled to his feet and got the rest of the story from Riagen and his father. After he'd fallen overboard, he'd been lost from sight, and the captain of the ship had said there was nothing to be done. They had battled the ocean for another two hours before the storm finally broke, and the ship was able to limp to the nearest shore just after dawn.

"We asked around for any person who might have washed up onshore," Riagen said, "but there was nothing. We were just preparing to leave when we got word of you being here!"

Well, that explained the mounted guards. "Did you hear anything about a girl?"

"A girl?" his father asked.

"Yes," Mahkai breathed, glancing between the two of them. "When - it's - there - well, it's all a blur after I fell overboard. I don't really remember how I managed to swim to the shore. But I do remember hearing a girl talking to me. And the villagers said they heard a girl, too, but we didn't see her."

Riagen shook his head. "Nothing about a girl, sorry."

Mahkai laughed weakly, hoping to prove this little anomaly didn't bother him. "Oh, well. I guess my ears were just waterlogged."

The king pulled him into an embrace as well, and then Mahkai set to work introducing his father to the humble fishing villagers who had saved his life. Their eyes were as round as dinner plates, and they looked at Mahkai with a new respect.

"Mahkai, what did you do to these poor people?" Riagen asked.

"Nothing!" Mahkai insisted. "I just...didn't tell them who my best friend was."

The little old lady who had been taking care of Mahkai like a long-lost grandmother stepped forward. "But he was completely right in doing so. How are you supposed to casually mention the king may have been in a shipwreck? No need to start a panic and false rumors. And you shouldn't yell at him so much!"

Mahkai honestly tried to smother a laugh when he saw Riagen's face, but he was not successful. Riagen was far from a spoiled prince, but that didn't mean he was used to people speaking so frankly to him so soon after meeting. And no one had ever scolded him for yelling at Mahkai.

"I wasn't - I wouldn't - ," he spluttered.

Mahkai patted his shoulder. "Relax, Riagen. You don't need to defend our entire friendship."

The old woman winked at Mahkai when Riagen's back was turned.

They spent the next hour discussing the health of all the other sailors on board, and Mahkai's father trying to repay the fishermen for saving his life and the fishermen trying to refuse. Awestruck children snuck closer and closer to Riagen's side, until Mahkai broke the tension with the story of Riagen's first day on a ship and his struggle to find his sea legs. Having been born on the sea, the children found it unendingly hilarious.

Eventually, some kind of agreement was reached - at least, both sides looked pleased to Mahkai. Hands were shaken, children's heads were ruffled, and the little old woman hugged Mahkai so hard he thought his bones might crack. Then he was mounting behind Riagen, and the royal party rode off, finishing the last leg of the journey on blessedly dry land.

* * *

Assana's lungs were burning. Her ears throbbed and popped in her head. Her arms ached with the desperate effort to swim as her tail grew weaker and weaker. Salt water stung her eyes. But the only thing Assana cared about was the overwhelming desire, the need, for one thing: air.

Never before had Assana been unable to breathe. When she'd first ventured to the surface, she had been afraid she wouldn't be able to breathe the air, as she knew humans couldn't breathe water, but a quick peek above the waves had calmed her fears. Now, though, one gasp had brought water rushing painfully into her nose and mouth. Her first reaction had been to cough, but some stronger, unknown instinct had screamed at her not to. All she could do was follow the sea witch's advice, and swim.

But even that was getting harder and harder to do. Assana's arms were exhausted and her tail was uncharacteristically sluggish and uncoordinated. It was hard to focus on anything but her lungs screaming for oxygen.

It was too hard to keep her eyes open. They drifted shut, as Assana continued to swim blindly. She was going to die here in the middle of the open ocean. Her family would never know. What if her body drifted to a human shore? It was almost laughable, the scandal her death would cause for both worlds.

A cold current brushed her hand. Assana was so tired, she simply couldn't force her tail into one more stroke. She desperately wanted to take a breath. The cold current bit into her hand again. Assana stilled, letting herself float in the water. Her head fell forward, and she felt her hair brush lazily against her cheek. The cold brushed at the back of her neck, and a shiver ran through her whole body. It figured that she would die shivering, but Assana couldn't fight it anymore. She breathed in another lungful of water.

Her limp body bobbed on a current, and the cold engulfed her entire head. Assana took another breath. She smelled salt. She felt no resistance as her body fought the invasion of water into her system.

Because there hadn't been any water.

Assana's tail gave a weak kick. Her eyes snapped open. And then her lungs instinctively sucked in a huge, beautiful, precious breath of fresh ocean air.

She immediately regretted it, as she began to cough and cough and cough as her body expelled all the water she had breathed in. When she could finally breathe normally again, her throat burned and her chest ached. But it could not remove the grin from her face.

Assana treaded water with her arms to keep her head above water. The sun had already set, and it was difficult to see much of anything, if there even was anything to see. Assana spun in a circle, squinting through the darkness. It seemed that the witch's mountain did, in fact, reach the surface; in scraggly outcroppings just big enough for an exhausted mermaid to sleep on.

Assana let out a moan at the very thought of sleep. She had never been so tired, not even after battling a storm and saving the sailor. She paddled weakly to the closest rock and braced her hands on its surface. She established a good grip, and heaved her tail out of the water.

Assana practically flew up onto the rock. Her body landed harder than she expected, momentarily knocking the air from her lungs and instigating another coughing fit. When she could breathe again, Assana turned over so she could sit up. Her tail was always incredibly bulky and heavy out of the water. Why was she now so light?

Something was wrong. Assana ran her hands frantically up and down the length of her tail. Her rigid scales were gone. Had they all fallen off? No, that was impossible; she'd never had more than one scale shed at a time.

Her tail was smooth and soft, and surprisingly, smaller than usual. In the dark, Assana patted herself down, looking for other changes. Nothing else was different. Her arms, her face, her hair, her stomach: all just as they were when she woke up this morning. Hands trembling, Assana passed them down her tail once more.

The scales were smoother, and her tail was less thick; in fact, it seemed to dip in the middle, as if...

Assana actually shrieked this time. Her lungs compressed, and she felt her throat vibrate, but no sound came out. Her tail had been split right down the middle, right in half! Tears streamed down her face as she lifted one half, than the other. Her emerald tail was destroyed. She would never swim again.

Her hands went further down, and the tears dried on her cheeks. There was no blood, no bits of muscle and bone as would be expected in a wound this size. The side of her tail grew slimmer and slimmer until it ended in a small piece of flesh, more substantial than a fin, with a series of smaller pieces on the end. The other half was exactly the same.

She couldn't breathe the water.

Assana threw herself down on the rock, laughing in silent hysterics. She didn't have a tail at all. She had _legs_. Human legs, with human feet. Assana had wanted to live on the surface, and what better way to do that than to be a human?

Assana ended up falling asleep where she lay on the rock. When she woke up, the sun was high overhead and almost unbearably hot on her skin. Its light blinded her, her eyes unfamiliar with light that was not filtered through an ocean of water. Only two weeks away, and her body had already forgotten what the surface was like. Assana forced her eyes to deal with the pain as she sat up. She wanted to see her legs in the daylight.

The first thing she saw was her feet, and her peculiar toes! Assana had never seen a human foot before, as the sailor had been wearing shoes. Her toes looked like stubby little fingers, though less dexterous.

Her legs were much slimmer than her tail had been, even when pressed together. Her tail had been a thick, muscular appendage, with very little shape. Her legs, on the other hand, had dips and curves. Hesitantly, Assana bent one knee, pulling her foot closer and closer to her body. Her knee bent so far, the two halves of her legs touched, farther than her tail could bend. Assana bent the other leg to match and rested her chin on her knees, effectively folding herself into the smallest ball she'd ever managed before. She enviously thought of all the tiny little hiding places in the palace she would now be able to fit in.

Assana straightened her legs to view her new limbs once again. Toes, feet, slim legs and knees, then thicker legs and ... what in all the seven seas was _that_?

There was no time to try and figure it out. She had to get off this rock and onto dry land, preferably land with other humans on it.

Assana slid off the rock and back into the water. She felt small and vulnerable without the strong, powerful muscles of her mermaid's tail. Even gripping the rock with both hands, she was terrified of the current pulling at her feet becoming strong enough to drag her underwater. The sailor had been full of muscles, and he'd nearly drowned, after all.

The water tugged relentlessly at her new feet. Assana hugged the rock, now contemplating climbing back on and coming up with a new plan.

But wait. A current this strong was only present close to a shore. However, Assana couldn't see anything but clear, still water in all directions: no waves to crash onto that beach. Should she follow the current and risk getting pulled into deeper ocean?

Well, she didn't have much of a choice, now, did she? It wasn't like she could stand on this rock and holler at the first ship that came into sight.

So Assana gathered her courage, took a deep breath, and let go of the rock.

For awhile, the current wasn't strong enough to pull her along, so Assan spent a good hour figuring out how humans swim. Specifically, how to use her wimpy, gangly legs to swim effectively. It was like having another pair of arms. Mermaids used their arms for navigation and not much else; their tails were more than powerful enough to propel them through the water. Human legs, on the other hand, were not nearly as strong, and they had less surface area to push against the water. After some experimentation, Assana began to move her legs independently of each other and pushed water aside withe her arms. It was slow going, but she was getting somewhere.

Before long, her body began to bob up and down on the big swells that were the precursors to waves. Assana followed them, and their current grew stronger and stronger until it was dragging her, roughly, to a distant shore.

By now, the glaring sun and exhausting swim had taken its toll on her. It took all her willpower to kick just enough to keep her head above water. The constant up and down of the swells was making her dizzy. Or perhaps that was because she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten.

The first wave that crashed over Assana's head nearly drowned her. Then, her hair, plastered to her face and neck, practically strangled her. But she didn't care, because when the wave pushed her down, her new toes brushed the bottom. When she pushed her hair out of her eyes, she saw the beach. She would have whooped with joy if she'd had a voice.

Assana's feet touched the ground and stayed there. The water level fell below her neck, then her shoulders, and then her waist. As the water level fell, there was less water to hold her up, and Assana had to rely on her exhausted, very new, very wobbly legs to hold her up.

It didn't go very well.

Assana quickly resorted to dragging herself along with her arms, as she had done when she'd had a tail, until she was finally on the shore. She collapsed onto the sand, panting for breath. The sun was still hot on her back, but she didn't care. She wasn't going to lay here very long.

Just a few minutes, Assana told herself. Just until you get your breath back.

But her body didn't quite agree. Her legs screamed at the very thought of attempting to walk again. Her eyes kept fluttering shut as her body begged for sleep.

Assana was just drifting off when she heard voices shouting and footsteps running towards her.


	9. Chapter 9

Assana did not wash up on the same beach as Mahkai. This village was big enough to be called a town, and their income came from trade and city-dwellers who wanted to spend a weekend at the beach. However, be they town-raised or village-raised, children are always curious, and always desperate for adventure. It was a group of children who found Assana passed out on the shore, and it was their curiosity that drove them closer to her rather than getting an adult.

It wasn't very often that a shipwrecked person washed on on their shore. According to their parents, the last one had been when their fathers were children, and he had been a pirate. No one had ever heard of a girl washing up onshore. And what's more, she was hardly dressed! All she had on were scraps of cloth - or maybe seaweed? - plastered to her with seawater.

But only a few of the older girls were even bothered by the girl's state of undress. It was these few girls who thought to run back to the village for an adult. The other children were far more interested in watching the girl as she lay sleeping on her stomach in the sand. They whispered to each other, wondering how far she had swum in the ocean from her shipwreck, and if there would be any treasures following her. One little girl tentatively reached out for one of the seashells strung around the sleeping girl's neck.

That broke the spell. Other children crept forward to get a better look at the shell, as it was unlike any they'd ever seen on their beach. The reached out and touched her hair, a dark an unusual shade of red, to see if its color was the only unusual thing about it. They marveled at her very pale skin, and how her fingers weren't wrinkled, despite what must have been hours in the ocean. And so when Assana finally woke, she was very startled to find herself positively surrounded by no less than a dozen curious little faces.

Assana's arms screamed in protest, but she pushed herself off the sand and scurried back a few steps. The children were nonplussed, and merely sat back on their heels and continued to watch her.

"Hello," one little girl said. She held out the seashell necklace. "This is yours."

Assana nodded at her, and slowly took back her necklace. She retied the corded kelp and hung it around the little girl's neck. The girl giggled and smiled wide, flashing Assana her very first sight of a set of dimples.

"Where did your clothes go?" another child asked.

Assana looked down at herself. She was still wearing her seaweed wrap top and kelp skirt, the outfit she'd been wearing when she'd left her bedroom what felt like a lifetime ago. But looked at the children around her, and remembering the grand, beautiful clothes worn by the models in the paintings in her cove, Assana suddenly felt embarrassingly under dressed. She inched backwards a little farther and pulled her knees tighter to her chest.

"Are you cold?" a boy asked. He pulled off his thick fisherman's sweater and handed it to her. "You can wear my sweater."

Assana took the proffered garment with a small smile. It was unlike anything she had ever worn in her entire life. She had watched with an intense curiosity as the boy had taken off the sweater, as it was called, trying to figure out how to even wear it. Her arms _and_ her head went in?

Several pairs of little hands reached out to help, and before long the sweater was on. Assana hadn't realized just how cold she had been until the warm wool of the sweater was wrapped around her back. She still felt, by some instinct, that something should be covering her new human legs, but this certainly was an improvement. She smiled wider at the children around her.

Voices began calling from up the shoreline. Assana followed the children's gazes to see what must be their parents coming towards them. The woman was wearing a long dress and apron, clothing Assana recognized from a painting and a conversation with Riagen and Mahkai, while the two men behind her wore pants and the newly-identified sweaters. Assana was more fascinated by the woman's hair: it was somehow wound into a ball and was sitting on the back of her head. Mermaid could wind their hair into knots as well, but they had to be secured with braided ropes of seaweed in order to prevent the water from pulling it down. Assana could see no ropes of any kind in this woman's hair, or anything holding her hair up for that matter.

"Children, what's going on?" one of the men asked. His eyes flicked to Assana and quickly moved away.

The children all began shouting over each other, desperate to be the one to narrate the great story of their generation. The woman left the men to sort it out and crouched down beside Assana.

She untied her apron and lifted it over her head, then tied it around Assana's waist. "Are you all right, dear? Does anything hurt?"

Assana took stock of her limbs. The muscles in her arms and legs were horrifically sore, but she knew that would quickly fade. She had a few stinging cuts, but they had already started to heal, thanks to the salt water. She shook her head at the woman, indicating that she would be fine.

The woman seemed surprised. "Oh. Good. My name is Mara. Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?" She helped Assana to stand on shaking legs. Sand coated her still-damp skin and was matted into her hair, an incredibly itchy sensation that Assana did not enjoy, and the thought of cleaning it all off and putting on clean clothes was heavenly. Assana took a few stumbling steps forward, her legs exhausted, but more sure of themselves than earlier. She leaned heavily on Mara's arm, and Mara nodded at one of the girls in the group, a child whose resemblance signified her as Mara's daughter. The girl jumped up and held onto Assana's other arm, making the walk through the sand much more manageable.

Mara and her daughter led her to the spot where the sand ended and turned into what looked like a soft kelp bed - a section of the ground covered in small shoots of green - and up a pathway of rocks towards a group of houses. They looked very much like the houses in Alantia, but at the same time, they were different: different materials, different styles, different sizes. It was just enough familiarity to give Assana a sense of safety, and just enough unfamiliarity to pique her interest.

Unfortunately, she wasn't given very much time to gawk. Mara quickly directed her to the back of a small but cozy-looking house and ushered Assana inside. Just the back door was enough to keep Assana's mind occupied for hours. Doors under the sea were little more than heavy curtains of various aquatic vegetation, or, for more opulent rooms, dangling strings of shells and coral. Here, in the human world, doors appeared to be movable sections of wall, firm, impenetrable structures that covered every inch of the opening, could not be seen through, and were probably difficult to eavesdrop through.

So distracted was she that Assana barely noticed the interior of the house, or the way Mara and her daughter scurried about to set up the bathtub and stoke the kitchen fire to warm the water. Before long, Assana found herself divested of what little clothing she'd had and deposited into the lukewarm bath.

Assana had never taken a bath in her entire life. Mara's daughter handed her something, a small block of white, but Assana could only stare back stupidly. What was that for? Why had they so quickly plucked her from one body of water only to place her in another? Why had they insisted on removing her clothing? At least Mara had closed the doors and windows before doing _that_.

After an awkward moment, Mara stepped in. She took the white thing from her daughter and dropped it in the water a moment, and then wrapped it in a square of thick, rough fabric. She rubbed the fabric vigorously. Assana's eyes widened. Small, white bubbles began appearing on the fabric; Mara had created seafoam from that little square? But how did she do that?

"Here you are," Mara said not unkindly. She handed Assana the bubbly fabric. "This is my grandmother's soap recipe, and it smells absolutely divine, if I'm allowed to say so."

 _Soap._ Assana stored that word away in her rapidly-expanding lexicon. And it did indeed smell heavenly, though Assana could not name the scent. It was something sweet and airy, but not overpoweringly so. Unfortunately, she still had no idea what to do with it. She passed the square from one hand to the other, fascinated by the way the bubbles lingered on her palms. Curious, Assana smeared the fabric up her forearm, wondering if the bubbles would stick all over her body.

"That's it!" Mara said approvingly. Assana gazed at her, and then continued to pull the soapy cloth up her arms. She grinned as she watched the bubbles pull the sand and dirt away from her body. Mara used a small pitcher to pour warm bathwater over her now clean arms, and the bubbles fell away along with the grit and grime. Assana could have laughed with delight when she discovered the scent of the soap remained on her skin.

Before long, her entire body was cleaner than it had ever been before, even her hair. Mara had helped her scrub more soap along her scalp, effectively rinsing out nearly two decades' worth of salt from her long, red hair. Assana gloried in the wonderfully light and airy feel being clean gave her.

She stepped carefully from the bathtub, and dried the water from her skin with a thick "towel", and wondered at the texture of clean, dry skin. Assana watched Mara move around the house and fingered the ends of her wet hair, hoping it would be as smooth and soft-looking as Mara's when it was dry.

Mara brought her a pile of clothes and helped her dress. First, a chemise and stockings, then knickers up her legs. Then shoes made of stiff leather that buttoned up her ankles, and a stiff wrap around her middle and breasts called "stays" that made Mara's daughter wrinkle her nose.

Mara frowned at her. "Stays are not so bad, young lady. When I was your age, we all had to wear whalebone corsets. _Those_ were uncomfortable."

Assana thought the stays were snug but not completely unbearable; certainly, no worse than some of the formal dress she'd been forced to wear for royal occasions.

The stays were covered by the under-dress and petticoat, and then finally the dress, a deep royal blue skirt and bodice that laced up the front with white ribbon. Mara squeezed out her hair once more and ran a brush through it before braiding it and tying the end with a matching ribbon.

"There now," Mara said, smiling. "Doesn't that feel better?"

Assana nodded eagerly. She felt wonderful, despite the residual ache from her all-day swim.

Desperate to repay their kindness, Assana and Mara's daughter cleaned the kitchen. As they dragged the heavy tub to the street to drain it, the girl shyly introduced herself as Nina. Assana wondered why she was getting shy now after she'd had to teach a grown girl how to take a bath but she smiled and nodded anyway.

"What's your name?" Nina asked, her eyes bright with curiosity. She was about to become the most popular girl in town!

Assana pursed her lips. She knew form her harrowing swim across the sea that she couldn't even whimper, let alone speak her own name. Finally, she frowned, pointed at her throat, and shook her head.

"You can't ... you can't speak?" Nina asked.

Assana nodded furiously.

Nina's brow wrinkled. "But you can hear, can't you?"

Assana nodded her head again, more hesitantly this time.

Nina smacked herself on the forehead. "Of course. Obviously. It's just that, usually people who can't speak, can't hear, either. I'm sorry. I promise I'm not usually this foolish."

Assana bumped her shoulder against Nina's, much in the way she would swat at one of her sister's tails with her own fin in play. Nina bumped her back and giggled.

Back at the house, Nina handed her a piece of paper and a short pencil. "Can you write your name?"

Assana eagerly took the supplies, jumping in surprise when she felt just how stiff the paper was when it wasn't completely submerged underwater. But as she put the pencil to the page, she hesitated. She already knew that humans used a different writing system than merpeople. Or was it just that her books were written in a different language than the common tongue she shared with Riagen and Mahkai? They'd told her that humans had dozens of different languages that they spoke and wrote in, and even some that they wrote in but no longer spoke. And the language changed based on where the people lived - and where exactly was she in relation to her own secret hideaways? The beach where she'd left the sailor? Alantia?

It struck her for the very first time that she'd been away from home for several days now, and no one knew where she'd gone. _She_ didn't even know where she was. The pencil slipped from her grip and clattered to the tabletop, bringing her back to reality. Nina was staring at her again.

Assana gave her head a little shake and decided to just go for it. If they couldn't read her language, then they couldn't read it. There would be no harm in that, right?

Nina's eyes grew wider with each symbol Assana wrote. The girl had never in her entire life seen letters shaped quite like that. When Assana handed the paper back to her, she took it warily between her thumb and forefinger.

"I, uh, I -" she started, then swallowed. "I can't read this. What language is this?" She called for her mother.

For the next several hours, the page with Assana's name written on it was passed from person to person as everyone tried to decipher the strange girl's language. Children began copying the strange little pictures in the dirt with sticks. Simple folk, who could hardly read their own names in their native tongue, scoffed and waved the page away with hardly a glance. Scholars waxed eloquently on ancient hieroglyphics and dead languages, but once it was determined that they, too, were stumped, no one paid them much mind.

Assana only grew more and more nervous. Had it been a mistake? How long would they debate over whether it was Romantic or Germanic? How many times would the man with the very long white beard glance over at her? Her skin crawled beneath the unfamiliar layers of clothing and her toes chafed in her boots as she stood in the town square next to Mara while people chattered around her. For the first time, she thought of her father and sisters. She had been gone for several days, now. Were they looking for her? How long had it taken them to notice she was gone? Had her father been right?

Were these humans, who had been so nice, now going to turn on her once they realized what she was?


	10. Chapter 10

Prince Riagen Alexander Cambern, Crown Prince and heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Ersta, was unbelievably bored. he remembered almost a year ago, about how the prospect of being trapped aboard a ship for months at a time ad seemed stifling, and even that did not compare to this. He was in a cabinet meeting, seated between his father's and Mahkai's, both of whom were clearly upset with his squirming and sighing.

Well, he couldn't help it. He sighed again, ignoring the look from his father the king. Riagen knew that this was one of the unavoidable aspects of being royalty, but seeing as he was not yet king, he didn't understand why he had to pretend that he was enjoying himself. In truth, he was hardly paying attention to the old, dry councilman's unending monotone, and he wondered how on earth anyone hadn't fallen asleep yet. His own eyelids were heavy now that he thought about it.

This council meeting was nearly as long as the stupid war their country had been fighting for generations. The on-again, off-again battles and skirmishes had been little more than border disputes for the majority of Riagen's lifetime, but recent political upheavals in Ersta's mortal enemy Fraya had escalated things into several all-out battles in recent years. Formally prepared to make peace, King Alexander of Ersta was now readying his army for full-out war.

And this was why Riagen was here. His father wanted him to fully understand every aspect of this rise and decision to fight, in the hopes that there could be peace in his son's time, if not his. Personally, Riagen believed his father far too stubborn to truly achieve even a stalemate the way he'd been going about it, and so didn't think he'd learn anything useful in these meetings.

Riagen couldn't even talk to Mahkai to pass the time. Mahkai was seated two chairs down, beside his own father, looking vastly uncomfortable, but for a different reason. Guilt struck Riagen's chest like a physical blow. Mahkai's father was the general of the army, head commander of the military, and from the moment he'd been born, Mahkai had been expected to follow in his father's footsteps. In a country that had been plagued by war since before anyone can remember, Mahkai had big boots to fill. Despite years of training and visits to battle fronts, Mahkai had absolutely no interest in the military. Riagen knew the only reason his friend picked up a sword and put on armor was because they were lighter than the weight of his father's disappointment.

Riagen started a new attempt to pay attention, if only to get his friend out of here faster.

Mahkai was absolutely miserable. The entire time they had been aboard the ship, it had been easy to pretend that he wasn't destined to take his father's place and lead the army to another hundred years of war. There had been no room for daily fencing practice, and certainly no horses for grueling rides across rough terrain in heavy armor and gear to prepare himself for life in a a charging cavalry. He'd been excused from tedious lessons detailng ancient battle strategy and the most effective ways to maim and kill before your opponent can do the same to you. It had all been a beautiful escape, a brief glimpse into a life he'd only dreamed of having, and now it was all coming to a screeching halt.

His father was leaning over his shoulder, pointing to numerous maps spread out in front of them and scribbling notes to him on a scrap of foolscap. He highlighted points that the speakers were making an argued for or against them in Mahkai's ear, speaking in phrases like, "When you're in command...," and "After you've been given a colonel's stripes..." Mahkai loved his father dearly, and respected him greatly, but he was in grave danger of disrespecting his elder in the presence of a lot of important people.

"Finally!" Riagen breathed when they were at last allowed to leave. "That was insufferable."

Mahkai's face was pale and his lips were pressed tightly together. Riagen hadn't been able to hear everything the general had been saying to his son, but he could tell it had been terrible. He knew better than to push for information.

"Let's...uh..." he wracked his brain for a good distraction. "Let's go -"

"Riagen!"

If it had been anyone other than his mother, Riagen would have brought the wrath of the crown upon the person's head. As it was, he merely turned and gave the widest smile he could manage. "Yes, Mother?"

"My son," the queen said, gliding over. "Mahkai, are you all right? You look pale."

Mahkai gave a tight smile and a short bow. "Milady. I'm fine, thank you."

The queen didn't look entirely convinced, but she said nothing. "Riagen, I insist that you join me for tea."

Riagen couldn't stop the groan that escaped. Tea with his mother could only mean one thing. "Mother, I -"

"No arguments, Riagen! the queen said. "I will not be swayed."

The invitation meant that there were several very eligible young ladies awaiting his presence in the queen's tearoom. Ever since he'd returned from abroad, the queen had been desperate to match her eldest son with a beautiful, wealthy, well-connected girl. Unfortunately, it seemed that these ladies sacrificed their brains for beauty or riches, because none of them had an ounce of sense in their heads. Riagen was not looking forward to an hour trapped with women who simpered and smirked and looked only at the crown on his head.

Fortunately, his mother took pity on him. "Would you like to accompany us, Mahkai?"

"You don't have to," Riagen hurried to say. As son of the commanding general, Mahkai was a catch in his own right, but he was often overlooked for a crown prince.

"I don't mind," Mahkai answered. He straightened his waistcoat and a smug smirk spread across his face. "Those poor ladies ought to know I'm the better-looking one."

Riagen pretended to be appalled and looked in mock horror at his mother. Queen Caroline's eyes moved form one boy to the other and heaved a dramatic sigh. "He's right."

Riagen clutched his chest in shock, though he knew it was true. Mahkai had the silky blonde hair and clear blue eyes that made ladies swoon. Riagen was boringly brown.

Queen Caroline led the way to her favorite sitting room where, sure enough, four young ladies were already waiting. They all rose and curtsied elegantly for the queen, and more coyly for Riagen and Mahkai.

"Your Highness," one girl said prettily, bending herself into a low curtsy in such a way as to allow him a generous peek down her bodice. Riagen flushed bright red. Mahkai did not get such special treatment.

It was going to be a long, long day.

* * *

Assana woke with the sun. She had every single morning she'd spent in the human world, and that now reached about a week. The sun was a wonder she'd never tire of seeing, though it was a little frustrating that its beautiful light refused to allow her to sleep in late.

Assana rolled onto her other side, putting her back to the window. She snuggled deeper into her blankets and pillows, luxuriating in the soft sheets and plush straw mattress. There were no blankets and pillows in Alantia; she merely stretched out atop a sea sponge bed. But it was impossible to sink into its softness or experience the coziness of wrapping her limbs in her warm woollen blanket.

For the thousandth time that week, Assana thanked her lucky stars that the townspeople had not been too scared of her unfamiliar letters and had not thrown her out of town. For all her worrying, they had merely shrugged their shoulders, deciding, "She's must just be smarter than us." No one had been too perturbed by her lack of speech, either, especially after she reassured them that she could understand when they spoke to her.

And so now Assana was staying with Mara, her husband, and their children. Her little bed was tucked in the corner of Nina's bedroom. Every day she shadowed either Nina or Mara about their daily chores: washing laundry, taking care of the animals, cooking, and cleaning the house. Every day, Assana learned more and more about life on land. It was vastly different from her life in Alantia, but Assana readily believed that most of it was because she had left a palace for a cottage.

Assana usually woke a little before Nina did, and she used this time to think quietly about all the things she'd learned, and all that she'd left. She felt a pang of homesickness every morning. She missed her sisters primarily; she longed for afternoons spent getting ready for balls and dinners in their shared rooms, teasing Marilla about boys and Cordelia's regal, motherly gaze over all of them. In particularly taxing moments, she missed the comforts of home, but more for their familiarity than anything else.

But she refused to dwell on unhappy things; she was eager to learn and embrace her new life. When Nina rose for the day, Assana quickly followed suit. They made their beds and helped each other dress before going to the kitchen to eat breakfast with all the others.

Assana spent the morning doing chores. Today was wash day, so she and Nina gathered up the basket of clothes and the washing tub and brought it down to the well. They filled the tub and scrubbed the clothes with a soap that did not smell half as nice as the soap they used to wash their skin. Then the clothes were wrung out and hung on a rope to dry. It was difficult, back-breaking work that made the muscles in Assana's arms tremble, but once it was done, Mara let them have the rest of the day to themselves.

To her delight, Nina took Assana through town to the seaside. They collected a few of Nina's friends along the way, and off they went. Assana gleefully pulled off her shoes and socks and dragged her bare toes through the sands. She had finally gotten used to having feet and toes and legs, and she did have to say she thought them more useful than a tail.

As the sun began to dip below the horizon, the children all gathered their belongings and made their way home. Assana went in the back door of Mara's homey cottage behind Nina and her younger brother and sister. All together, they put the evening meal on the table and sat down to eat it as a family. This was Assana's favorite part of the day. The only time she and her sisters and father ate dinner together was during royal functions. Assana loved hearing about the younger children's day, and the way their father teased them. She couldn't contribute much to the conversation, but everyone still asked her questions and patiently interpreted her hand gestures.

Assana was blissfully content in this new life. That first week blended into one month, and then two in the blink of an eye. In all that time, her mind drifted less and less often to the home she'd left behind her. In truth, some days she forgot she had ever been anything but a human.


	11. Chapter 11

Never before had Cordelia wished as much as she did today that she was not heir to her father's throne. She had been prepared for the role her entire life, and so never minded the duties and expectations placed on her shoulders. but today, Cordelia would have given anything to be anyone but her father's daughter.

Her youngest sister, her baby sister Assana, had been missing for six weeks now. She simply disappeared one day, and no one knew how she'd managed to slip past not only the additional guards outside her bedroom, but also every palace guard stationed outside along the perimeter. Assana had, by all accounts, quite simply vanished into thin water.

Not that Cordelia could really blame her. Assana had been under lock and key for more than a fortnight before she'd disappeared, and Cordelia knew her daily morning visits weren't enough. Assana was a free spirit, desperate to explore and learn and simply move about; being locked in her room for even a day must have been torture. What's more, Cordelia also knew she was the only one Assana had to talk to every day. Their father wanted nothing to do with her, and the rest of their sisters were far too confused to make much of an effort to talk about the situation.

"Not that they paid much mind to her anyway," Cordelia grumbled to herself in the mirror. Assana, by consequence of her age, had always been a bit of an afterthought to the other girls. Everyone else was concerned with marrying well before they were deemed too old for marriage, or finding respectable occupations, or inheriting a kingdom, to worry about Assana, who was still in the schoolroom. Cordelia liked to think she did her best to consider each and every one of her sisters, but that was her own opinion, and she was incredibly busy doing whatever her father and his advisers asked of her. But could she have done more? How had she missed that Assana was collecting human treasures of all things?

Cordelia had been to the remnants of the cove where Assana had kept all her things. It was a healthy distance from the palace, and although the treasures were now mere bits of flotsam and debris on the ocean floor, it was obvious that the little cove had been comfortably full. It must have taken Assana years to accumulate all of it, not to mention the time and effort it took to track down the shipwrecks, bring it back to her hiding place, and then travel back home. How many times had she slipped away to simply enjoy the privacy of her cove?

Tonight, they were having their first formal dinner since Assana had gone missing. Poseidon had demanded that they act as if nothing were wrong, as if there hadn't been legions of guards scouring the seas for a red-headed girl mere hours ago. Tonight, Cordelia was going to have to smile and flirt with men of all ages as if she wasn't constantly thinking of where she had gone wrong raising her youngest sister. And as the oldest, she was responsible for setting the example. The other girls were a huge range of emotions - confused, scared, indifferent, eager - and they would look to her to figure out which ones to show on their faces, to know how to interact with their ever-unpredictable father.

Cordelia wanted to be anything but her father's daughter.

But, she could not change what she was. She straightened her necklaces, pinched her cheeks to heighten their color, and turned to the door. She swam up to her sisters' shared room, where they were preparing themselves for the dinner. Their voices drifted out into the corridor, loud and shrill in her ears.

Mechanically, Cordelia arranged hairstyles and necklaces and skirts. She touched up makeup and assured rattled nerves. If her sisters could tell that her heart wasn't in it this time, they didn't say anything.

They filed soundlessly to the dining hall, their usual excited whispers silenced by the knowledge that their line was missing a princess on the end. Cordelia knew that, despite their efforts at pretending everything was normal, the girls were deeply affected by the disappearance of their baby sister. The weight of it all settled on Cordelia's shoulders like the pressure of a thousand seas.

As they entered the room, Cordelia plastered a smile on her face. She felt everyone's eyes following them, as usual, as they swam up to the royal dais. Poseidon was already there, his expression slightly grimmer than usual, his ever-present head adviser at his elbow. The girls filed into their usual seats. Darya made a strangled sound in the back of her throat as she gazed at the empty setting across from her. Their father shot her a suspicious look, and Darya immediately looked at her lap.

The meal was stilted, as usual, and Cordelia felt the familiar rush of relief as the moved to the dance hall. Here, Poseidon would be less present and overbearing, and the girls would be distracted by dashing young mermen. Cordelia herself wouldn't be afforded the same luxury - she would be at her father's side and dance with whomever he approved - but at least she no longer had to worry about her sisters.

She floated at her father's elbow, a smile pasted on her face as she listened to a group of elderly mermen blather on about outdated politics, and desperately wishing she could dance. Most were too nervous to ask her to the floor, as her father insisted she stay by his side.

"We are very sorry to hear about your daughter, Sire," some unfortunate soul said.

Cordelia felt all the muscles in her body stiffen. Beside her, Poseidon completed his transformation into an unyielding and relentless tsunami wave.

"I'm afraid I do not follow," Poseidon said in a deep, threatening boom. "There is nothing wrong with any of my daughters."

The instigator of this madness looked confused. "I was referring to your youngest, Your Majesty."

Poseidon gestured to Nanamei, who was hovering nearby. "My youngest is here."

Cordelia closed her eyes in horror, trying to keep too many emotions from showing on her face. Nanamei, whose attention had been grabbed by the uncharacteristic mention of her, gasped.

The man scanned the crowd. "Surely, Your Majesty, you recall the past few weeks, the disappearance of the Princess A - "

"Sir," Poseidon boomed, officially drawing the attention of every being in the room, "I have only six daughters. They are all present. Anyone who speaks otherwise will suffer dire consequences."

Cordelia hadn't realized she had stopped swimming until her tail brushed the floor. She could scarcely breathe. Gasping, she hurriedly flexed her fin and brought herself back up to the same level as everyone else. A shocked silence hung over the ballroom, and no one was quite sure where to look - at the king, at his pale daughters, at each other, or at the floor. The stifling silence was broken by a muffled sob from Marilla as she fled the room.

Poseidon had denounced his daughter. It was a royal decree - anything he said was a royal decree - which meant all efforts to find Assana would be called off. No one, not even her sisters, would be allowed to speak her name. Her bedroom would be turned into something else. If she found her way back to Alantia, no one would be allowed to acknowledge her. She no longer had a home. Assana had been shunned, and no one had been disregarded this way in hundreds of years.

Cordelia knew her father did nothing lightly. This was no slip of the tongue. She swallowed hot tears and did her best to control her expressions. Desperate to maintain some degree of the propriety her father demanded, and to move past the incredibly awkward scene, Cordelia turned to the merman beside her and murmured, "How about a dance, kind sir?"

Fortunately, he must have been feeling just as uncomfortable as she, because he bowed and offered her his hand without comment. The rest of the room's occupants quickly turned back to their groups, pretending that nothing of consequence had happened, but Cordelia knew better. They would all be gossiping about her baby sister, debating what terrible thing she had done to be so cruelly and publicly disowned.

Cordelia's dance partner said not a word until the last few moments of their dance. "Your Highness," he said in a hushed, hurried whisper, his lips brushing her hair, "if you ever need help, please, do not hesitate to ask."

Cordelia truly looked at him for the first time that night. His sandy blonde hair was a bit longer than was considered fashionable, floating around his head and causing him to appear younger than she thought he really was. Or perhaps his turquoise eyes were simply wiser beyond his years. She struggled to remember his name, and it must have shown on her face because he quickly told her, in the last seconds before he left her with her stormy father.

"Travis Chapman, Princess."


	12. Chapter 12

Veronica Mayer, daughter of one of the richest dukes in the land of Allar, was bored.

She'd been stuck in a carriage for days now, traveling to Ersta, and it was all her father's fault. Her blood still boiled whenever she thought about it, weeks after she'd found out. Her father had run up countless gambling debts, and now all their family wealth and lands were in jeopardy. Rather than own up to his mistakes, the Duke was convinced that everything would be fine if he could marry off his only child to the highest bidder. This was merely his third attempt, and no amount of tears, tantrums, or pleading would deter him. Veronica vaguely wondered if he'd picked this far-away suitor simply to get her out of his sight.

She sighed, leaning her head against the carriage window. She didn't particularly care where she went or who she met. She would simply refuse this potential husband just as she had done the other two. Those men hadn't seemed particularly bothered by her refusal of their offers of marriage, most likely because they understood the situation. They probably had a better idea of everything than she herself did, since her father hardly ever let her out of the house, and she had no idea what the gossips were saying about her.

Well, no matter. Veronica was out of the country now, and she wouldn't have to face those gossips for several months at least. What's more, she might even get to see the seashore on this trip - there, a silver lining!

As she watched the foreign scenery roll by, Veronica fingered the pendant at the bottom of her long necklace. Once upon a time, she'd been eager to marry and settle down. The wedding had practically been all arranged. A naive young girl then, she'd excitedly dropped hints about her engagement to everyone who graced her sitting room. The rumors spread like wildfire, and soon, she was being told that she was engaged to the crown prince of all people!

At first, the rumors had amused her. Veronica had laughed about them with her friends and her fiance, fully prepared to refute them and present him to all the world as soon as the ring was on her finger. Unfortunately, she never got a ring.

Veronica lifted her head from the window, heaving a sigh as she did so. It wouldn't do to dwell on what was past; she couldn't change it, after all, and it would only make her cry. She tucked her pendant back into its usual place under her bodice, and patted her hair, doing her best to freshen up her appearance. They were getting close to the royal palace, and despite the fact that she had no desire to marry anyone within its walls, she still wanted to make a good impression.

* * *

Riagen lifted a pillow to his face and screamed into it as Mahkai snickered behind him. A footman had just left after summoning the prince and his best friend to yet another tea in the queen's sitting room. This was the second time this week, and after nearly two months of simpering females, the prince was quite ready to go back to sea.

"Stop laughing!" Riagen shouted around the cushion.

"No!" Mahkai chortled, truly unable to control himself. Riagen was always so polite, so refined when in company that seeing him completely fall apart when they were alone was always hilarious.

"I don't see why you're laughing anyway," Riagen grumbled, pulling his head up. "I always make you come with me."

Mahkai sniffed self-importantly. "No one pays any attention to me, and I get tea and cakes out of it. It's no hardship for me."

Riagen smirked. "I had noticed you were getting a bit pudgy."

His friend gripped his midriff protectively, looking appalled, but said nothing, since they both knew it was an outright lie. If anything, Mahkai's stomach was flatter than ever before, because of the intense training regime his father had started with him as soon as they'd set foot back in the palace. It was another reason Riagen insisted Mahkai accompany him to basically every social event he was forced to attend; if left to his own devices, the general would have Mahkai working in the training circles from dawn to dusk.

Riagen stepped over to a nearby mirror, checking his reflection more for his mother's sake than any young lady he may meet. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear and straightened his collar.

"You're as ugly as ever." Mahkai's face appeared over his shoulder in the mirror.

"So are you," Riagen answered, tugging Mahkai's tie so it was off-kilter.

Reluctantly, Riagen made his way down to his mother's sitting room. Queen Caroline smiled at her son and his ever-present shadow. The two had been attached at the hip since they could walk, and in fact, it was a cause for concern to see one without the other.

"Boys," she said, in a voice that was at once commanding and gentle, "I am so glad you could both join us today."

The boys bowed politely to the queen, and accepted kisses on their cheeks. Mahkai's mother had died when he was very young, and Queen Caroline had not hesitated to accept him as her own son, which meant he was still subject to the occaisonal embarrassing display of affection.

"I believe you have been introduced to everyone here, save one," she continued. Riagen looked around the room, seeing the save fluttering eyelashes that had been haunting his nightmares for about six weeks. "The Duchess of Kanesbury arrived just this morning."

A delicate blonde girl stood from an overstuffed chair at the queen's left and curtsied deeply. Riagen blinked in surprise, and didn't dare look over at Mahkai. It was the first curtsey that didn't subject him to an embarrassing view of something he shouldn't be seeing.

Belatedly, he bowed to her, inclining his head at the same time as Mahkai.

"Lady Veronica, this is my son, Riagen, and his friend, Mahkai, who is the son of our commanding general. I'm afraid you will never find one without the other."

Lady Veronica smiled serenely. "The pleasure is mine, Your Highness." She spoke with a faint accent, and she seemed to be looking more closely at Mahkai than at Riagen.

Queen Caroline frowned, and Riagen placed a hand on her shoulder, hoping she would understand his meaning.

Mahkai said, "You are the duchess of Kanesbury? Is that not a region in Allar?"

"Yes, although my title does not hold as much power as one might think. My father is a duke with several different holdings, and Kanesbury is the smallest of them. As his only child, I was granted the title."

"You are his heir, then? To all his holdings?" Riagen finally found his tongue.

Lady Veronica tucked a bit of golden hair behind her ear. "Yes, I believe I am, though of course I cannot inherit until his death. As my father is not ill or very old, his titles will most likely fall to whomever I marry, if the man agrees to take our surname. If not, some will fall to me, some to any children who are not my husband's heir, and some to distant cousins."

Riagen smiled, perhaps the first genuine smile he'd ever graced that room with. "That's rather confusing, is it not?"

She giggled softly. "I suppose so. I just consider myself lucky that, as a girl, I can inherit anything at all."

Mahkai nodded sagely. "Very true."

Queen Caroline entered the conversation then. "Would you do the honors, Lady Veronica, and serve the boys some tea?"

Lady Veronica curtsied to the queen, and made her way to the tea service not too far away. Mahkai followed her, and Riagen would have as well, but his mother grabbed his sleeve. "Riagen, what are you doing? I think Lady Veronica -"

"Yes, Mother, I know," Riagen said quickly. "Don't worry, I will explain everything later tonight. Just please, go along with it for now."

The queen narrowed her eyes at him, which told him in no uncertain terms that an explanation was due as soon as they were alone, but did not refuse him.

As Riagen approached the tea service, Mahkai shot him a quizzical glance over Lady Veronica's shoulder, but merely shrugged when Riagen indicated that he would explain later. Riagen breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing quite like a best friend.

For the remainder of the hour, Mahkai and Riagen stayed with the duchess, ignoring the hateful stares of the other young ladies boring into their backs. Riagen was astonished to discover a young woman with whom he could hold an intelligent conversation. Lady Veronica told them about her home country, and how she worked to manage her duchy of Kanesbury with her father's steward.

"If I may ask, Lady Veronica," Riagen began cautiously, "why did you come so far to our country, Ersta? To travel from Allar by carriage is a four-day trip."

Lady Veronica set down her teacup, biting on her bottom lip. She looked up at Mahkai from under her eyelashes and quickly redirected her gaze down to her hands. "Well, I simply wanted to see more of the world around me. Aside from traveling between my father's estates, I have not gone anywhere in my entire life." A sudden blush stained her pale cheeks. "I'm sorry. I sound so conceited!"

Riagen shook his head. "No, not at all! Trust us, we feel the same. You go everywhere with your father, correct? Where he goes, you go, and if he has a lot of holdings, it means you have to travel to them all. We completely understand."

Mahkai nodded in agreement, and Lady Veronica was visibly relieved. "Oh, well, when I recieved an invitation from Queen Caroline to come and visit, and my father approved, I simply couldn't resist the opportunity."

A footman appeared in the doorway and spoke in the queen's ear. Mahkai noticed, and stiffened.

Riagen stood smoothly, re-buttoning his jacket as he did so. "Your Grace, it was wonderful to meet you. I hope to see more of you very soon."

Lady Veronica stood as well and curtsied to them both. "It was wonderful to meet you. I greatly enjoyed our conversation."

Mahkai bowed. "I, too, enjoyed our conversation. Perhaps we will see you tonight, at dinner?"

She smiled. "I would be honored."

The footman was waiting patiently for them in the doorway. "Mr. Arevalo, your father is looking for you."

Mahkai stifled a sigh. "Yes, of course. I will be along presently. He's down at the training fields, or the stables today?"

"The stables, sir."

Mahkai nodded, and the footman disappeared down the hallway. Mahkai turned to Riagen. "You owe me an explanation. I could get in serious trouble for pretending to be you."

"Not if I want you to be me," Riagen said eagerly, gripping Mahkai's shoulder and leaning in close. He spoke in a low, urgent tone. "You know they - girls - treat me differently than they do you, and only because of a fluke at birth! I just want to know what it's like not to be looked at for a crown."

Mahkai looked at him sidelong. "But she doesn't treat me - you - like a crown."

"No." Riagen fumbled and stuttered over his words, "she doesn't. That is, she didn't. Today. But -"

"You like her."

"What? No! I just met her!"

Mahkai nodded slowly, pursing his lips. "All right. I trust you. Just don't get me thrown in the dungeons for this." He slapped Riagen's shoulder and turned down the hall.

"We don't have any dungeons!"


End file.
